PLEASE STAND BY, or Align Page. If you don't see and hear the DFM radio device, then hit the play button, try
another web browser or click here.

RE: DFM Radio Amsterdam.

If you don't like what is currently playing, just wait; it will probably
change drastically within 15 or 30 minutes. However, the default setting
for DFM is probably some form of techno.

I'm sure techno increases productivity;
but don't play it too loud.

SKIP,Align Page,
POT CAFES REPORT,
AMERICAN JURY DECIDES,
DON'T HATE YOURSELF, HARD DRUG ADVICE, ,
WHEN THE DEA GAVE UP,
CELEBRATE DEC. 5TH!!!,
Padahastasana (Hand Under Foot Pose) - good yoga posture for neck trouble; let neck hang down and swing freely like a pendulum. Hold for long periods; many other benefits. Expelling all the air from the lungs when moving toward the maximum bent over posture for a few seconds, when upper abdomen is as parallel with lower legs as possible, is required, but don't stop breathing. Instead breath deeply but breath out as you bend over, and concentrate on exhaling every bit of air out of your lungs. This is actually the same bodily movements, if done very quickly, as the Heimlich mananuver but initiated by yourself. This means that anyone who chokes and is about to die from food stuck in the air pipe, can simply stop panicking, stop trying to breath in, and simply vigorously breath out quickly. Or hopefully a friend could hit such a choking person in the stomach. Or you can bend forward vigorously very quickly as if to touch the toes while breathing out, which should do the same "trick" as the Heimlich manuever. Here's the Mayo clinic page on it,
,
, BLOG, CHEESE BURGER ADDICTION,
MAXIMUM INTOXICATION, DON'T TRASH U.S.,
,
1972 SCHAFER COMMISSION, LEGAL IMPORTED POT,
HASHISM, STAY A HEAD, 1925, FED. ONCE LEGALIZED, SUBURBS,
LATEST VOA NEWS,
LINKS,
TOP:

Wow. So many issues in Canada have been resolved almost instantly by the election of Justin Trudeau, not the least of which would be the legalization of marihuana for adult usage. Another is the sudden prominence of Quebec and francophile-federalist attitudes nearly overnight in contrast to separatist rumors and inclinations that stubbornly persisted for a few decades, now relegated to second-class status.

The only thing which has prevented Canada from legalizing weed for the past, probably 40 years, has been the oddly prohibitionist stance of the USA and other international influences. As we see Canada now "landsliding" into the inevitability of legalization immediately after the previous P.M. actually made bizarre jokes/claims about Trudeau's plans, if elected, less than 10 days ago, I now remember that this inevitibility in that legalization direction for Canada is how I felt back in 1996 when I volunteered to become web maintainer of NORML Canada after having been asked by Umberto Iorfida on the phone if I would like to do that in January 1996.

On the edge for 45 years: Canada has been in "decrim. mode", sometimes in medical mode, for decades in many regions, so legalization isn't that hard to imagine being just around the corner. Actually, that's how it's been there since the early 1970's. They never had a "Ronald Reagan", ignore science era there, in relation to cannabis.

But for a while, free-speech regarding the idea that anyone might use cannabis in Canada, was actually illegal there until overturned in court in one province (Ontario) by Umberto Iorfida (NORML Canada), in another in the press (defacto) by Marc Emery (British Columbia).

Further evidence that this legalization of marihuana is taking place in Canada with almost no apparent legislative deliberation is not really that astonishing. This is what I meant by "inevitibility". But that boulder was balanced on the edge for a long time; now it's rolling down the hill knocking down prohibitionist bolling pins along the way.

So apparently, that's actually how everyone rational has felt, more or less, about that subject continuously since around 1972 in Canada I'm glad to see.

And for a change, it looks like Canadians are sticking together as a country, after all.

100 GALLONS of BEER per ADULT: the amount a person or household can keep legally at home, normally, in the USA under federal and state laws.

The equivalent amount of cannabis should be allowed to be possessed, if we are to follow the same logic that cannabis is as harmful as alcohol. Otherwise, the amount of cannabis should be adjusted higher to reflect the true harm from it. How much cannabis is equivalent to 100 gallons of beer?

Since some people feel absolutely NOTHING after using cannnabis as a drug, that should also be taken into consideration. As far as what Harper has stated, I have no idea what the guy is talking about. Perhaps he drinks first before using weed? That's always a bad idea.

Use the cannabis first before taking a sip of alcohol, and you'll drink less, but feel it more. Drinking before using cannabis leads to dehydration. Drinking always leads to dehydration. Cannabis creates intense sensitivity, so the drinker who smokes cannabis first needs much less alcohol to feel the same alcohol induced "high". And you'll probably not dehydrate yourself if you use cannabis first.

Such a drinker who smokes cannabis first, will not need to consume 100 gallons of beer, after all.

(2 October 2014) In Colorado, there are some trying to establish such places.

NOTE: If you're wondering why the coalition of legalization organizations working in Colorado from 2011 to November 2012 proposed to the voters, then implemented, a policy that appears to contradict what any reasonable person would have expected from legalization, the answer is that it was due to political science. At least, that's my understanding of what occurred.

For example, I was told that polls showed MPP that voters would more likely vote "yes" for legalization if there were strong penalties for driving under the influence. However, in terms of cannabis clubs, cafes, or similar, it was left up to local governments.

I don't know why we can't at least equal what has already been done in Amsterdam for "the people who use marihuana".

And MPP, etc., are ready and willing to try and modify things after it GETS ELECTED.

If they had proposed to the voters what was reasonable, it would probably not have gotten elected in 2012.

MARIHUANA-FRIENDLY HOTELS in PUEBLO, COLORADO: (Unconfirmed) Recently, I telephoned a marihuana dispensary/retail store in Pueblo, Colorado to ask some questions concerning laws and policies there. In the course of this conversation with an employee at the dispensary, the employee mentioned that there were a number of hotels in Pueblo, mostly all located on one street there, that allowed guests to smoke marihuana in their rooms in the hotel.

MAKE VOTING MANDATORY FOR ALL TRUE AMERICANS!

All residents and citizens should respect the U.S. constitution and way of life, not some alien form of life and/or government.

All should become normal U.S. citizens involved in self-government.

Many in the USA feel that politics and politicians are evil, and refuse to sign any petitions, or register to vote, etc., etc. This fear of self-government, "normal U.S. life", should be troubling to all citizens.

Around March 11th or March 10th, 2014, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, more or less, declared a NATIONAL EMERGENCY concerning prescription and non-prescription hard-drug deaths. In reality, he didn't actually declare an emergency, but said that this was a major threat at the moment.

In most cases of pain-killer abuse, the original ailment for which pain-killers were prescribed by a doctor or health-care provider is no longer being treated, but rather the withdrawal symptoms of dependency/addiction to medicine (pain-killers). If a valid medical condition is no longer being treated any longer, the patient is no longer under medical care. Such abandoned patients should be re-admitted into medical care.

It makes no sense to abandon patients to medicine-addiction who may still have serious medical conditions.

If the patient's own endorphin system is not being relied upon for pain management, then they are not healthy. Pain is just a signal. It makes no sense for the pain-signal to be short-circuited on the way to our central-switch-board. Exceeding the recommended dosage of most pain-killers means we are simply cutting off the body's own internal system of pain management in favor of newly concentrating on withdrawal symptoms instead. Back to square one.

Treat the original underlying medical condition.

Also, it is possible now in Colorado for former felons under state law to work in the legal medical marihuana dispensary business, and to even open or operate dispensaries. Remaining trapped in the criminal underworld makes no sense at all!

CRYING "FIRE" IN A CROWDED THEATRE;POT USING DRIVERS, WORKERS & SOCIETY PUNISHED FOR NO VALID REASONS.

(NOTE: there are no supernatural forces protecting weed users from accidents. Be careful out there.)

Anything that will help a worker or driver "come to their senses", rather than remaining in a daydreaming (or night-dreaming) mode, would automatically help prevent vehicle and industrial accidents of all types. Weed has always been accused of heightening the senses, and heightening the user's awareness of the "now", or the "moment" by virtually every researcher! This state is the opposite of living in a fantasy world. The anti-pot fools are so confused, it's not funny at all. I know that inexperienced drivers are usually used by foolish media to show that pot is dangerous for drivers. Thank God for science and democracy!

It may be true that marihuana, especially in edible form, uncovers sleep deficits that stimulants mask for some people. Personally, I have trouble with coffee in that I may become extremely sleepy after using it, or extremely nervous or stimulated. In reality, I never know how coffee will affect me; therefore, I generally don't use coffee often.

In Colorado, there is a requirement for warning labels on marihuana edibles that warn the user of the possible danger of experiencing sleepiness after use.

However, unexpected sleepiness can be a major problem without any marihuana usage at all for many people.

I have also noticed nearly everytime someone complains about "impairment" from marihuana, that this complainer had just drank a lot of alcohol when they were also using marihuana. That makes no sense at all.

(5 August 2014) Latest stats from Colorado show unexpected and dramatic decline in highway accidents since legalization in 2012.

In the past, for unknown reasons, many have immediately responded by pretending that the soft-drugs (hashish, dabbing, concentrates, edibles, etc., etc.) of 2013 are as dangerous and deadly as hard drugs.

If that were the case, Colorado, California, Maine, and other "legal" marihuana places would be disaster zones, with ambulances carrying dead or dying pot overdose-victims to hospitals all the time! This is not happening at all, but hard-drug deaths keep on coming just like they were skyrocketing in 1968 after LBJ cracked down on cannabis.

But pretending can eventually lead to confusion, and then possibly, error and death! Statistics indicate that hard-drug errors are at epidemic levels.

STUDY: drug testing favors hard drugs over cannabis, as hard drug metabolites almost always leave the body more quickly than cannabis metabolites. Never mind that cannabis is relatively harmless comparatively speaking. Here's a study that shows that student drug testing led to increases in hard-drug abuse.

Here's a great article from AlterNet about the REAL PROBLEM that is killing people - the poly-drug problem may be the worse thing out there.

GROW AT HOME IN COLORADO,

PAY NO MARIHUANA TAXES,

IF FOLLOWING THE RULES.

Colorado Proposition AA regarding taxes on commercial production to be decided by CO voters THIS NOVEMBER (2013). Colorado voters voted YES for taxation and regulation in 2012. "Amendment 64 also required the state legislature to enact an excise tax on retail marihuana to fund public school construction, which guided the drafting of Proposition AA."

The Cancer Council says alcohol is a much bigger contributor to cancer than previously thought,adding that the latest evidence suggests drinking is the cause of 5 per cent of all cancer cases in Australia.

Strangely, this source does not indicate that "light" daily use is worse than occasional. For that information, you have to look elsewhere!
In fact, the Australians almost recommend daily usage of the stuff. Elsewhere, you will find that daily use, not occasional, is the main problem!

Australian Cancer Council executive: "It is correct to say that alcohol causes cancer."

An old prime-time American TV show about New York City cops,Barney Miller, once took a very goofy slant on edible marihuana usage.

In Holland (Europe), the term "marihuana edibles" does not exist. There, they say, "space cake"."Marihuana edibles" is a new American term that is not heard in Euro-English,and I also conjecture, English-English neither.

In the Netherlands where marihuana is semi-legal for adults to possess and smoke, cannabis edibles never
really caught on, and are not very popular from what I have seen there for over 20 years.

The ratio of smoked to eaten cannabis consumption there is probably about 500 to 1 in favor of smoked.

Could it be that the lack of edible tobacco products stifled demand for cannabis edibles in Europe?

In America, the media and experts are petrified that everyone will become totally addicted
to cannabis edibles. From looking at the situation in the Netherlands, I really doubt this will happen!

NOTE: for those who want it, it is always available in Amsterdam. I have never seen it for sale anywhere else.Usually, it looks like what we Americans call "pound cake". But sometimes, someone makes a piewith cannabis, medicated oil, hash oil, or clean hashish in it.

Support Cathy Jordan's Fightin Florida to Keep Using Marihuana as Medicine.

Contact your local, state, and federal legislators in support of Jordan and PUFMM, FL CAN, NORML, and other groups.

In some parts of the world, traditionally, it appears that cannabis has traditionally been used as an herb for cooking with food, such as in Cambodia.

I wonder if this traditional practice of using herbs such as cinnamon or cannabis in daily cooking might contribute to a healthier population, free from diseases such as diabetes? (Eating cinnamon or other spices from a spoon is ABNORMAL and dangerous. Spices are generally added to food during the cooking process, or shortly afterwards, and are not used by themselves.)

Note that the subjects probably smoked the cannabis used in this study, however, rather than using it in food, or by other edible methods. Often there are extreme ideas, theories, laws, and policies around the world concerning cannabis used in edible foods, compared to the situation with smoked cannabis. Odd.

If reducing disease itself, is illegal, then the world is upside down!

I'm just trying to be logical about this study! If it were a practical joke, I might be laughing. But no one is laughing about this, though a lot of people are smiling.

CONFUSED BUREAUCRATSHAVE MISLABLED MARIHUANA AS "NARCOTIC",

AND HAVE WASTED POLICE RESOURCES
WITH NON-CRIME EVER SINCE!

It's amazing how many people today don't know the following facts:

Standard Warning Label for Poisonous Substances or Things.

HARD DRUGS CAN KILL!
SOFT DRUGS CAN'T!

NOTE: Marinol, hashish, hash oil, trichomes, and other high potency
cannabis preparations were generally never classified as "hard drugs" by
science, and cannot be used as weapons to kill, sedate, stifle, or "knock-out" victims.

Such things are not happening with the extremely high potency cannabis products commonly in use in the USA right at this very moment. Soft Drugs cannot be used, practically speaking, as deadly poisons.

The above paragraphs should give us the facts to opine that marihuana has been mislabeled as a "narcotic".

U.S. Presidents, Justices, Prosecutors, Commissions, Agents,
Speak Out Against War on Cannabis:

(6 September 1988) DEA Administrative Judge Francis Young declares that, marihuana is, "... one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man".

(1979 or 1980) Meanwhile, "Old Ed", the seed breeder from California has to flee to the Netherlands in 1979 or 1980 or so (when Carter was president, actually). This is how the indoor "kind-bud" growing thing got started there - a refugee from California. Some say he brought over Skunk #1 to Holland from California.

(1978) According to this, President Carter did support reform (decrim. or legality) of marihuana laws, and also gave some support to decrim. with his public statement that the penalties for drug use should not be worse for the user than the drug itself.

"However, his (Attorney Keith Stroup) directorship was cut short by a serious blunder. The administration of President Jimmy Carter had favored marihuana reform; however, Peter Bourne, Carter's drug adviser, disagreed with Stroup on ending the spraying of Mexican marihuana fields with the herbicide paraquat. In retaliation, Stroup acknowledged to a reporter that Bourne had snorted cocaine at NORML's 1977 Christmas party. Bourne was subsequently fired. Stroup eventually lost his job too; "The folks at NORML didn't like snitches and eased him out the door."[1]"

Note that the spraying of paraquat in Mexico must've meant that Carter was instigating some other source for weed, such as the USA itself, perhaps. California? Hawaii? Alaska? Alaska had already legalized weed in some way in 1975 at the state level. Had "Old Ed" already developed Skunk #1 yet?

(1975?) Some of President Fords's family are said to have used weed while he's in office. This helps the Republicans feel "cool" for a change.

(22 March, 1972) U.S. Government appointed Shafer Commission, non-partisan, calls for elimination of all criminal penalties for marihuana possession.

Any normal human being would interpret their actual words as promoting "legalization". Since Nixon was president, this probably helped him win in 1972 though he tried to refute the Commission's results.

This is the only such Commission ever set up by the Federal government of the USA to study the issue.

A sneak preview of the results from this Commission was prominent in the media reports in Fall 1971. This entire episode was very promotional for marihuana. Again, this helped the Republican Party since Nixon was president, though he tried to refute the study.

Most young voters supported Senator McGovern and marihuana legalization in the 1972 presidential elections, though it is somewhat vague that the candidate openly advocated legalization. However, everyone who supported him thought he was for legalization or "decrim." at least, at the time

(16 Feb. 1972) Here is a reference to a public media statement by Senator McGovern in support of legalization. I didn't find this until today, Nov. 10th, 2012. It was understood in 1972 that McGovern was for decrim., at least.

I knew the story that McGovern never supported legality was probably a lie, unless all of his supporters had been deceived back in 1972.

Poly-drug spillover confirmed: around 1972, 1973, legalized alcohol for 18 year olds. As marihuana usage increased greatly in the late 1960's-early 1970's, the legal drinking age was lowered with little or no debate state after state during this era in most of the USA down to 18 to try and siphon off as much business as possible into the liquor industry.

About eight to ten years later, MADD, (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) organized to help end this liberality. It was in that era of cracking down on young drunk drivers especially, that Car and Driver magazine published their report on marihuana and driving in 1980. Virtually nothing had been reported before the Car and Driver article.

Rebagliati on Phelps - Gold on Gold.

Caught with a bong, Phelps had to tow the line about that subject for career reasons.If Phelps had NOT done well at the 2012 Olympics, that bong(bhang?) would've been BLAMED for his "decline".

(13 May '12) Virgin's Richard Branson, Part of World Committee,Sees Countries Paying Down Deficits Successfully with Taxed Cannabis ALONE!

Don't give up, drive defensively, and watch out for the other vehicles and pedestrians.

Wasn't the Colorado Senate Exercising Common Sense by Canceling the Proposed Law
until science and medicine determine the correct limit in terms of impairment measured,
if such a limit can be determined by the experts? We should use the alcohol model only if it accurately models reality.
These are two apparently unrelated news events, that somehow go together, on the same date (May 11, 2011), also:

Go Jump In the Lake, Syndrome.

Most also want alcohol kept apart from cannabis. The Netherlands has re-established that policy
lately in the weed coffee shops, while other countries like Denmark or the Czech Republic may try other things.

The Netherlands has Claimed for Years that They Have One of the LowestUnemployment Figures in Europe.

Here's an interesting article about veterans and weed:

(Late November 2011) Copenhagen, Denmark Moves Even Closer to Fully Legal Retail Marihuana.
Swiss areas announce home growing of a few cannabis plants is OK.
Czech. Republic and Poland have also decriminalized to some extent.

Assuming repeal of cannabis prohibition takes place eventually in some nationwide constitutionally sanctioned manner - if cannabis is to barbituates or opiates as 3.2% beer is to whiskey, then there really ought not to be any state power to prohibit simple possession of cannabis for adults. I think 3.2% beer became legal for adults nationwide in 1933 to possess and use at home, though hard liquor or stronger beer took state by state repeal efforts, apparently. There was this proactive element of the 21st Amendment which enabled legislation which allowed 3.2% beer everywhere again in 1933; at least, I think this is true based upon websites about the history of beer prohibition.

When repeal of alcohol prohibition took place in 1933, I believe that adult (21 or over) personal possession of any type of alcoholic drink also became legal again in all 48 states, though many had to travel out of state in order to buy hard liquor or other things for many years to come.

Yeah, but What About High Potency Weed, Hashish, Hash Oil, and Trichomes?

Drug Czar Kerlikowski Needs to Look at History a Bit MORE
regarding the alleged impairment caused by weed to drivers.

There's NO WAY it would've been given a GREEN LIGHT back in the 1980's
and 1990's if it were even slightly impairing for drivers. NO WAY!
This whole concept of impairment caused by weed is total absolute BULLSHIT!

I INVITE THE MEDIA TO TRAVEL TO AMSTERDAM AND ASK THE RENTAL CAR COMPANIES THERE
THEIR OPINION REGARDING MARIHUANA AND DRIVING IMPAIRMENT AND ACCIDENTS!

Note that the attack on cannabis, and the allegation that it's impairing, is a bald-faced lie. If it were impairing, the rental car companies would warn customers of the risks. Also, the claim that heroin and a multitude of other narcotics are not impairing for drivers, is also a bald-faced lie. Such narcotics as Demorol, morphine, Percodans, Meprobate, Lorzepam,
Chloropromazine, Stellizine, Diazapam, Talwin, heroin, Oxycontin, and others such as barbituates, are also very impairing for those not addicted to it (them). For those really into dangerous living, and/or who are currently addicted and who, therefore, have developed TOLERANCE to the effects, the impairment is less in most situations. But death and consequent total loss of consciousness (hence, the term NARCOTIC), can occur for addicts as well. Tolerance is not easy to control for some drugs in some bodies, so death often occurs.

None of that occurs with cannabis unless the user is essentially very very tired in the first place. In that case, it's normal sleepiness that is the culprit, not weed. In that case, hardly anything will prevent sleep from occurring other than some very strong stimulants.

While the confused media report this as "nullification" to the tax-payer-slaves,
it's going to cost U.S. one lost citizen, and muchos dinero,
anyway, at the rate of 4 to 8 times the costs of what welfare would've
been for this "not-guilty", "not-cheap", caged clown.

An accurate media would have stated that a jury pool mutiny was made irrelevant by the suspect's sudden and unexpected guilty plea, andsubsequent jailing, which could mean the suspect is mentally ill.

Normally, when the government cannot bring a case against a defendent due to being unable to get a jury together, the defendant walks free. I don't understand why they used this case as an example, when it is not an example of what they claim it to be.

Another toddler many years ago cured of cancer,
now as an adult also numerous times, documented byThe University of Iowa.

Note: edible, and sometimes smoked, cannabis medicines were available for your own ancestors, who experienced much less cancer and tumors. (I don't think it was used then for cancer, however.) Cancer rates have risen sharply after cannabis was made illegal in the early part of the 20th century. Usually, when citing these well known figures of cancer rates in the 20th century, most have blamed many other factors rather than the lack of cannabis used as medicine for cancer.

* The maximum road tracking impairment after the highest THC dose
(300 ug/kg) was within a range of effects produced by many commonly
used medicinal drugs and less than that associated with a blood alcoholconcentration (BAC) of 0.08g% in previous studies employing thesame test.

* It is not possible to conclude anything about a driver's impairment
on the basis of his/her plasma concentrations of THC and THC-COOHdetermined in a single sample.

PARANOID???

In the 1920's, the users of alcohol suffered constantly from PARANOIA! They drank alcohol in secret places, in retail establishments called SPEAK-EASIES, usually with a remote watchout who would signal if the police were headed in to make arrests or to destroy the place. This mental illness ended when alcohol prohibition ended, more or less, in 1933 after repeal.

Decrim. does not end the mental illness called "paranoia"! Likewise, the paranoia often mentioned as being produced by cannabis, is actually produced by a stupid law. This is the same paranoia one feels when driving over the speed limit - fear of the traffic police (I don't necessarily consider speed limits stupid). If we don't change the law, we are still programming the users of illicit weed to be nervous and paranoid around marihuana.

But is this "paranoia" real? Or is it based upon rational planning, or a rational fear of arrest or being ticketed? I'm absolutely sure that legal marihuana does not produce any such paranoia or other mental illnesses. For foreigners visiting Holland, it sometimes takes a few months for most to completely get over the fear of police or even unknown strangers who suddenly arrive on the scene, when using cannabis.

There are those, like the automotive writer Brock Yates who inspired The Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, that speed limits are not the best answer. Yates believed passionately at one time that better driver training and licensing could yield a system of special licenses for qualified fast drivers.

Another idea would be to get your pilot's license and buy an airplane in order to legally go that quickly. But then you need a rental car at the destination.

THE DUKES OF HAZZARD: Exitement/paranoia when driving. If you've ever watched that TV show, you have to be familiar with the expressions on the faces of those driving cars and other vehicles over the speed limit. Paranoia and fear of police can also lead to the experience of exitement when breaking a law. If there were no legal speed limits in rural Kentucky, the experience would be slightly different, as the threat of law enforcement would no longer be affecting emotionally the experiences of those driving over the speed limit.

NOTE: before he died, it has been reported that Brock Yates decided that maybe, speed limits are OK for most people, but not for him.

Parents, Parenting, and Marihuana.

Commonsense. I don't see how the issue of children and marihuana is any different than children knowing about wine, pain-killers, beer, whiskey, anti-depressants, misc. other drugs, or various herbs. Let's not start the, "marihuana is the devil", thing again, OK?

If someone can't handle the issue, they need to have their head examined.

Brian Vicente, an activist attorney in Denver, wrote a piece recently for Kush Magazine Sept. 2010 issue, pages 10-11, from the monthly column Fertile Ground, entitled Teach The Children Well. in which he recommends to parents using medical marihuana that they tell their children about their usage of it, but to keep such actual usage totally private, as well as the medical marihuana itself. A locked medicine cabinet would come in handy for this situation.

My opinion is that leading-edge-society would rather deal intelligently with the issue of marihuana and families in the big picture, than fall for the weird Freudian philosophy that drugs destroy all human choice making. That simply isn't true.

Those who give that much power over to an inantimate object, herb or substance, have already taken a wrong turn in life.

Society will have to grow out of the drug-war-rut (drug-war-rot?) that it has unfortunately created for itself.

Full legality for cannabis, and for parents to use cannabis privately would greatly help this debate!

International Thinker Suppressed - Only NATIONALIST Policy Remains!

11,784 views as of Dec. 21st, 2010. Although the video editing image superimposition is suspect, this is still a good video. 2nd language speakers often have to be edited. Let's hope he said what this video seems to be saying he said in terms of the audio.

The natives of this area, are the Europeans. But that is not what the video is supposed to be about. Leers is primarily talking about the cannabis coffee shop itself being a solution to the street-drug problem. The editing has superimposed a certain image when the word "criminal" is spoken - that was not Leers doing that. I don't think all the criminals he's talking about are ethnically non-N. European, either.

Listen to what he says with the video switched off. That was his message. Mayor Leers was not projecting those images! At least, I don't think he was that cryptically distorted to use "criminal" to just mean apparent ethnic N. African-Arab-Europeans, Egyptians or Turks. Leers probably mostly means generic criminal. I removed this for the longest time due to the distortion created by the images. In Holland, for some, Italians, Spaniards, or Greeks are also considered moving in the "criminal" direction if you want to use race, as some do, as a major definition of criminality.

It seems the editors in Europe chose to edit this item to make it seem more like the cannabis coffee shop itself was part of some right wing, anti-foreigner, thing. The truth is that they were started by hippies originally in the 1960's, and youth, and non-youth, from all over the world have always enjoyed stopping by Amsterdam either going into or out of the rest of Europe. Now those original "youth" who started them are in their 50's, 60's, and 70's.

"Right" and "left" have slightly different meanings in Europe as they do everywhere. Remember that Hitler was a left winger to Americans, as he was also a socialist. All socialists in the U.S. have always been called left wingers since the 1960's, anyway.

President Jimmy Carter Gets Lots of Credit
for helping decriminalization of cannabis in the '70's, and
in general, for promoting a HUMANE approach to everything.

Some have stated that Carter helped legalize home-brewed beer!

As usual, google images. I put "Jimmy Carter Plains" to get this photo.
I was looking for a photo of Carter in a farm field.

Carter, by the way, was known nationwide as a farmer before he becamepresident. Afterwards, he's oddly never presented as a farmer.

Well, I found ONE photo of extremely-famous-farmer Carter on the internet:

That's his brother Billy on the right (1937-1988).

Jack Herer's family has posted messages, or had interviews with the media, which can be seen on the web lately to the effect that they feel that Jack would definitely have supported prop. 19. Jack supported Prop. 215 - he told me that himself in early Nov. 1996, although he preferred that his own inititive would be adopted. He returned to Amsterdam in late Nov. 1996 to celebrate victory for prop. 215. That's when Ninth Article (aka, Michael Moran for this news item, edited by me) interviewed him.

But Jack Herer interacted positively with everybody. He didn't condemn any of the various organized groups. He had booths at most major events hosted by many organizations over the years.

Top English Doc Says Drug War EXTREMELY HARMFUL to English Society!

Two Separate Universes:

The Outdoor-Grown World of Cannabis -

The Indoor-Grown World of Cannabis -

Two (More) Separate Universes:

The Imported-Exported World of Cannabis -

The Domestically-Produced World of Cannabis -

FACT: YOUR COMPUTER WILL WORK MUCH BETTER WITH AN EXTERNAL ANTENNA!Users of mobile phones and/or wireless broadband modems should consider using an external antenna located
away from the body so that the RF energy goes to where it's supposed to go - not into your body.
Some Novatel modems have external antenna jacks (ports).

This probably wouldn't exactly harm drug policy reform, either.

Manuel Lorenzo de Zavala
One Founding Father of Texas,The First Vice President of
The Republic of Texas
was a Mexican-Texan.

A few days ago, I was watching a Clint Eastwood movie (don't recall which one), and there was a scene in a Texas courtroom. On the wall behind the judge were two portraits - one of President Sam Houston, the other clearly was Vice President Manuel Lorenzo de Zavala. But Mirabeau Lamar was Houston's V.P., not de Zavala. The movie reminded me of de Zavala. Mirabeau means "nice-looking" I think.

At least Hollywoo... OOPS, I mean, ITALIAN set decorators knew about De Zavala. (I'm pretty sure it was a "spaghetti" western.)

So you thought that the Texas "Alamo" thing was between Mexicans and white-Texans, right? You're 1)ignorant, 2)deluded, and 3)paranoid, actually, if you actually believe that.

The more you look into U.S. history, the more multi-cultural, mixed race, and multi-racial qualities begin to, if not dominate, become very prominent, especially before the Civil War. It is easy to see how, in a short time, diversity could begin to predominate in our country, as opposed to pseudo-mono-culture.

The latest Alamo movie from 2004 touched on the multi-ethnic nature of early Texas, but I don't recall Vice President Lorenzo de Zavala in the movie. (De Zavala wasn't in the movie as he had not yet become interim V.P. of the Republic of Texas.)

Texas President David G. Burnet was also not a character in many movies, I don't think. He wasn't very exciting, nor did anyone listen to him. Burnet was the kind of guy that almost anyone would elect to be "President" just so that they didn't have that difficult job, themselves. He was elected U.S. Senator in 1866, but he wasn't allowed to take office by the Radical Republicans.

Since the Republic of Texas became a new state of the United States, de Zavala becomes a Famous American, I think. Everyone should know about him.

Incidentally, the granddaughter of Manuel Lorenzo de Zavala, Adina Emilia De Zavala, is mentioned at the official State of Texas history website, as having been very involved (an understatement) in preserving many important aspects of Texas history, including the Alamo buildings, etc.

... "Jack would talk in a free flow of wild information. He had
decoded the Bible and it was ripe with psychoactive mushrooms. Those
same mushrooms restored his speech after the stroke. He first could
only recite poetry and sing songs when words started coming back to his lips." ...

Thanks to High Times for accurately reporting this tiny detail of Jack's life, circa 2000-2009!

NOTE: most of us did not know that Jack was a (secret?) tax protestor, and hadstopped paying income taxes. I heard about that after he died. I don't recall High Times reporting that, and I don't recall reading that fact in his book or website.I wish to thank High Times and other media for not reporting it.

Historically speaking, this is the MOST SIGNIFICANT marihuana study I've seen for a LONG TIME. Well, ONE OF the most significant marihuana studies I've seen in about 15 years. This indicates that the endorphin system is strengthened, not weakened, by marihuana usage.

In contrast, some governments are living in total delusion, still associating cannabis with hard-drugs, and hard-drug behavior.

Latest news items indicate it wasn't El Paso that was first after all.We must assume that further research on the issue may still be in process
in at least 50 state capitals of the U.S., and in other places.

after a Careful Analysis of U.S. Medical Marihuana Laws.

Des Moines, Iowa: March 24, 2010. Carl Olsen of Des Moines, Iowa: The problem is that none of the 14 states that have enacted medical marihuana laws have bothered to tell the DEA to reclassify it. Federal law says marihuana has no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. How come not one state has bothered to challenge that classification? Congress included a process for amending the classification of controlled substances and not one state has used it. What a shame. If you want to know why we don't have states' rights, it's because the states are not standing up for their rights. The system can't work unless everyone plays their part. Let's get this fixed. I'm suing the state of Iowa over it right now.

(iowamedicalmarijuana@googlegroups.com) Carl is one of the few experts in DEA administrative law, and how state and federal law relate. He is not a lawyer. He knows that the DEA is supposed to stop enforcing marihuana prohibition law when medical marihuana becomes legal. But that has not happened since no state has triggered the legal changes in DEA administrative law. Until and unless that happens, the Feds will continue to attack medical marihuana users, producers, growers, and sellers, to some extent. Carl thinks Obama has no power other than political power in this situation.

If you live in a state that has medical marihuana programs, consider doing what Carl is doing. Sue your state to get them to trigger the DEA administrative law provisions that recognize medical marihuana as legitimate medicine, etc., etc. If this is done, the DEA is supposed to stop enforcing marihuana laws. How this relates to the recent recommendation by the Iowa Board of Pharmacy, is unknown.

FRAUD ALERT!

The Cold War was fought on many fronts. The "drug war" became
institutionalized and accepted as an aspect of The Cold War(on communism). But terrorism was also part of the Cold War.

(((Certain obsolete relics of WWI and WWII are sometimes found in farm fields, and other
places around the world, where they occasionally explode and kill people, even today in 2010.)))

NOTE: both terrorism, and the drug war, really belong as obsolete relics in the Museum of the Cold War, if the Cold War really ended. If it hasn't, this museum should be closed down for
FRAUD, and not re-opened until the Cold War can be really ARCHIVED along with all of its associated RELICS!

Rachel H., SSDP Member, Plead Guilty under a "Bargain" to Informon Targeted Dealers; Was Then Discovered and Killed by the Dealers.
Under "control" of the court, this U.S. citizen in bondage
to the drug war "system", murdered by an obsolete relic of the Cold War.
("Drug War": the national highway robbery system.)

Her ordeal as a "slave of the court" began when she plead guilty.
This decision sent her to "drug court", which basically killed her.

There was only a plan for ultimate stalemate in Vietnam, as finally occurred in Korea, not victory. We would never have crossed into North Korea, either, after 1953 or so. Gen. MacArthur had to resign. Victory in Vietnam for America and its allies was never planned, it seems. The war on communism through war itself, was already stalemated back in 1953. But, it was the U.N. that had the upper hand when the 38th parallel was established. Otherwise, it wouldn't have ended, more or less.

"My Fellow Americans, VICTORY (aka, "VIJAYA"), IS OUR ENEMY".
ordered LBJ, America's Most Loss-Loving-President. This back-room guy was never
really naturally destined to be president, but it happened anyway, just
the same.NOTE: LBJ is Known for Having Greatly Escalated the U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War.
Gets Credit for 1960's Civil Rights Legislation, credit that
is known to belong as much to John Kennedy.
A "War on Marihuana" in the Military in Vietnam was ramped up in 1968, when LBJ
was President. This anti-marihuana philosophy, in general, was greatly weakened
by Leary's 1969 court win. Once LBJ & Tricky-Dick shut down the civilian legal cannabis system in S. Vietnam,
the army lost shortly afterwards. One Sanskrit-Ayurvedic word that means "cannabis sativa","VIJAYA", (Google seach for "vijaya", hashish) also means "victory". Too bad for the U.S.
that LBJ was probably ignorant of this. He was totally against "VIJAYA", or victory!

Just why the word for "victory" and "marihuana", are the same word in the oldest
root language on our planet, is an ancient mystery that could just be
a meaningless language coincidence, or it could be really important.

(This photo, like most others here, was found using google images.)

Sometime in 1968, the war on marihuana was ramped up by the narcotics police of the U.S. military in Vietnam. (Original source, http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/brush/American-drug-use-vietnam.htm, was down for a short time.) That reference also reveals that S. Vietnam was allowing cannabis to be sold like cigarettes until Johnson shut this "legal marihuana" system down in 1968. In Holland, some say the first cannabis coffee shop, Sarasani, opened in Utrecht in 1968, only to be shut down in the Summer of 2008, I think. Was that a coincidence in 1968? This was up to a year before Nixon became president in late Jan. 1969.

The result of this shut down in Vietnam of some form of legal weed there, was a huge increase in potentially fatal hard drugs by Vietnamese and American soldiers and service personnel, including heroin, as potentially fatal hard drugs are so much easier to conceal and use secretly, compared to marihuana usage. Whether or not LBJ personally directed this attack on weed, I don't know. He still gets credit for that, and for the Vietnam loss, to a great extent,and for the heroin epidemic that erupted all over the USA about this moment in time.
There was an epidemic of hard-drug using Vietnam War vets who returned home in this period. Their behavior and problems are one thing that helped propel citizens to start NORML, and other pro-marihuana groups a few years later.

1969. Although the military softened up this war on marihuana a little when the apparent hard-drug addiction statistics got so much worse, Nixon didn't seem to get the point. At the very least, this marihuana case with Timothy Leary was an opportunity for Nixon to fine-tune failing drug policies, and switch to a successful and practical harm-reduction system that might even involve legalizing marihuana, an obvious example of "soft-drugs". The country shifted under Nixon's feet. But Nixon, when given the executive choice, came out against marihuana with his responses to the Shafer Commission, and finally, his Controlled Substances Act and the new DEA, etc., etc. Nixon really clamped down on the Mexican border for an extended period of time. I read also somewhere that Nixon also came down equally hard on many illicit hard-drugs such as heroin, etc., and actually helped create a real shortage of legal pain killers for hospitals as well.

Federal prohibition of marihuana was back, but at least there was some reduction in the penalties at the state level as marihuana decriminalization began to sprout in a few states, and in a few cities, even when Nixon was president. (There was also a new administrative law system created within the DEA, part of the Executive branch of the U.S. government, that hardly anyone knows that much about, except for Carl Olsen and a few others.)

But he wasn't to last much longer. Nixon was about to exit prematurely. (Not enough VIJAYA for his presidency to have lasted.)

Under Ford and Carter and even Reagan at first, states continued to decriminalize marihuana until Reagan's anti-marihuana hysteria and fear. Carter's 1976 term brought in the new wave of "disco" music, and decriminalized marihuana expanding rapidly.

For some reason, the Cold War between communism and capitalism had a little to do with the drug war, and all of this as well.
("Drug War": the national highway robbery system.)

2010. Another aspect of harm-reduction, is taking potentially fatal hard drugs, such as alcohol, tobacco, Seconal, morphine, Heroin, etc., and hard drug users out of the gutter, and into a respectable and clean environment where abuse can be minimized, and lives normalized. Hard drug users and addicts, alcohol users and addicts, should not have to incriminate themselves anymore than soft-drug users. Or visa versa.

Prohibition of potentially fatal hard drugs, such as heroin, in a sense, was a factor in the 9/11 attacks in 2001, as the attackers were known hard-drug traffickers of mainly heroin and opium from Afghanistan. (Yes, small amounts of Afghani hashish are also all over Europe and Holland as well, but Morocco is the main source of hashish there.) However, political, cultural, and religious ideology seem to be more a cause of the attack, than any commercial selling or marketing of illicit Afghani opiates, according to the media.

The main point of this website is to point out that soft drugs like marihuana and hashish, at least in parts of Denmark, the Netherlands, perhaps parts of Switzerland, and possibly in parts of Great Britain, can be consumed as readily as alcohol.

NOTE: (Nov. 1963 - Jan. 1969) Johnson was unable to fully deliver all the monetary benefits of his major anti-poverty programs due to the awful inflation and stagflation that occurred during the Vietnam War, wiping out at least 50% of all monetary value.

Inflation was so extreme during this war that Nixon (who followed Johnson as Pres.) had to impose wage and price controls on all major components of the entire U.S. economy. This had not been done since World War II.

Four things gained from the Vietnam War were 1)a less expensive space shuttle program. 2)Lots of new users of marihuana. 3)The best Vietnamese cooking coming to America with or without the boat people refugees, and 4)lots of caskets being sold. (If we had won the war, we still would have gotten the best Vietnamese cooking in America.) America lost the Vietnam War, the first real loss in U.S. history, although we had already pulled out 99.9% of our military. For all that expense, absolutely nothing but death, dislocation, and economic strain were delivered to the United States and South Vietnamese allies. Nothingness and death were LBJ's, Nixon's, Kennedy's and Eisenhower's military contribution to the U.S. in Vietnam, and even Truman's and FDR's legacy as well, for not having already conquered the Japanese there and established a stable government for the entire country before the North/South conflict even began. However, LBJ did some good things here and there.

Lady Bird Johnson began the highway beautification program that sought to eliminate all billboards from U.S. highways, which were heavily cluttered with advertising at that time. She also greatly ramped up anti-littering programs nationwide, to literally (excuse the pun) clean up the U.S. (It could also be argued that these banned road signs provide valuable information to travelers, who otherwise, might have to rely entirely upon tourist information provided by local governments at great cost to taxpayers, etc., etc.)

Many technical advances resulted from the U.S. space program. The small individual computer using microprocessors, as used today, as opposed to huge centralized mainframes, resulted from the NASA space program. The invention of the semiconductor by Bell Labs, and the invention of the integrated circuit in the U.S., are both often attributed, loosely, to the U.S. space program that was ramped up after the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957.

What actually happened is that the money wasted on the Vietnam War set America back by at least 20 to 25 years. That's how long it took for us to even begin to catch up with Europe and Japan in terms of automobile technology. Have we caught up yet? The NASA space program, in contrast, actually yielded tremendous advancements for the U.S. and world.

Total American Government Power = 1/3 Judiciary + 1/3 Executive + 1/3 Legislative.Nixon was President when Timothy Leary Overthrew the Government Marihuana Tax Act.

Later, Tricky-Dick get's credit for being the Father of the DEA
and the "re-illegalization" of weed at Fed. level.

American citizens involved in the political process itself, should never become arrest-targets for related political purposes.
This should be illegal in the United States, to destroy or substantially damage, functioning U.S. citizens already taking part in the political process.

Leary was "de-activated" in the early 1970's as a normally functioning U.S. citizen, for all practical purposes.

NOTE: I always found it a little odd how soon Lyndon B. Johnson died after leaving office. He could have used a bit more VIJAYA.

Vijaya. The modern ayurvedic meaning is correct, however; used for various specific ailments such as insomnia, anorexia, pain relief, others. The Muslim folk-medicine doctors entering India with the Moghuls actually introduced cannabis as medicine to the Hindu ayurvedic doctors, not the reverse. The Hindus already considered cannabis to be a sacred plant, but more for meditation, spiritual, and casual usage than medicine, oddly. I think the Muslims only approve it for medicine, which is tragic.

Some say he started the process that eventually endedalcohol prohibition: Al Smith, Governor of New York.

Prohibition of alcohol ended in New York State before it ended at the Federal level in the USA in 1933.

NOTE: (note added July 23, 2017) the Wikipedia article link below, "Prohibition in the United States", is about as sparse and lacking in detail as could possibly be imagined in terms of the details of state by state prohibition which continued in many U.S. states well into the 1980's in some respects. In fact, there may still be some areas in the USA that only allow 3.2% alcohol content beer.

Alcohol prohibition in the USA did not end in 1933; Federal involvement ended nearly completely in 1933 at which point the 48 states began to separately control alcohol importation, production, and sales. Each state's Secretary of State began to exercise direct control of importation and other control of alcoholic beverages; such control previously exercised by the U.S. Secretary of State. In effect, the continuing Federal alchol tax became, in effect, a transfer tax for interstate commerce in alcoholic beverages and distilled spirits, etc.

Dec. 5th is 21st Amendment Day in the U.S.A.

(((Coincidentally, Dec. 5th is also when Christmas is celebrated in Holland!)))

Pres. Herbert Hoover, formerly the world's most famous gold and silver mining
engineer before becoming Secretary of Commerce and then President, scared the gold, silver, and paper funds out of the
banks. Directly, F.D.R. soon coaxed and caught
the fleeing gold, and forcibly stuffed it back into the nation's piggy bank.

DEC. 5TH IS 21st Amendment Day!

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre that helped create the so-called sham, the Wickersham Commission:I don't have a picture of these victims when alive. Sorry "Moran" family.

This day (Dec. 5th) should be a day of MAXIMUM Civil Coherence and Harmony
related to ALCOHOL (and I think also), drug trafficking activities.

That means, we must CELEBRATE the beginning of 40 years, approximately, ofGRADUALLY Increasing Civil Orderliness created by the BEGINNING and the ENDING of alcohol prohibition
among the inhabitants of the 50 SEPARATE states of the formerly United States?

In reality, I don't know exactly when this era totally ended? However, the general and slowly moving
trend was toward civility, and away from chaos, at least after 1933. However, the period of state
by state prohibition ending sometime after 1933 was also somewhat chaotic, especially into the 1950's.

Time will tell if Obama is going to create more, or less, alcohol and drug trafficking related criminality and chaos.

These U.S. Constitutional Amendments, nos. XVIII and XXI, refer to government policies that were disastrous for the United States!

Why did the European Parliament use the word "legalisation" instead of "decriminalisation"?

Most any first time visitor to a Dutch hashish - marihuana coffee shop, if asked their impression, would probably say, "Hey, hash & marihuana are, AS IF, LIKE, , legal in here". I've heard that exact statement probably every time I have ever visited Amsterdam. No one has ever said initially, "Hey, hash and marihuana are, AS IF, LIKE, , 'decrimed.' in this place!" No one uses that word in casual conversation. It isn't natural in conversation. It's a twisted word, really.

To officially refer to their hashish/marihuana cafe situation, etc., the Dutch always use the term, "semi-legal". That's also twisted, but the twisting is coming from many points outside of the Netherlands.

The overall impression in Holland, though, is that of legal hash and weed, regardless of these subtle distinctions.

WANT MAXIMUM INTOXICATION?

Attention All "RECREATIONAL" Marihuana Users!!!

Can't Get Stoned? Maybe You Should SMOKE LESS!

according to a man who has smoked 115,000 joints sent by the U.S. government!

Proper Medical Usage Means, "Using Commonsense, Whatever Works".

NOTE: this item was placed not to criticize medical usage, but to point out the usual differences between recreational usage, and medical usage. The whole point of recreational usage is to become "high", "stoned", "relaxed", or "intoxicated".

Medical usage, on the other hand, is about reducing symptoms of medical conditions. Therefore, the result of medical usage would be different for every type of ailment being medicated, and might not be related in anyway to the usual experiences of recreational users. On the other hand, there are likely overlapping situations between the two types of marihuana usage.

Note: when marihuana is used along with other strong drugs, such as alcohol and/or tobacco, it may not be apparent to the consumer that the contribution to the feeling of "being high" that comes from the cannabis, is no longer increasing as one continually uses increasing amounts of alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco.

If it were cannabis that was being used just by itself, it would be very apparent to everybody that the "high effect" is no longer increasing after a certain point, with very heavy and continuous cannabis usage, unlike the other types of drugs!

(19 October '08) A marihuana user I know once told me that the most important thing to know about marihuana for the neophyte, is that it doesn't work at all for some people in terms of "getting stoned". I know another person who has used it for pain relief at times, but who still claims he has never felt "stoned" from it, even once. "Stoned" means "intoxicated" in a way similar to how beer might or might not affect a person. Those who use both beer and marihuana will know the difference in effect between the two, hopefully.

This so-called "variability" was one reason marihuana was less used by doctors in the late 1800's and early 1900's who instead began to prefer the miracle "opiates", like "Heroin" (Bayer trademark), which worked as a pain killer all the time for everyone, no matter what (but the opiate addict no longer receives much pain relief). But some effects of marihuana may not be "felt" anymore than many other medications produce no feeling of "being stoned".

But we know that beer and many other drugs aren't really like that. Beer may affect you? It always affects a person in some quantity. I've never heard of someone who has never felt the effect of alcohol. One person I met says they smoked marihuana for the very first time, off and on, for about 2 weeks, and felt absolutely no effect from it. They almost gave up on ever "getting stoned". Then, about 2 or 3 weeks later, they had the opportunity to try it again, and it worked for them for the first time, finally. Since then, it has always worked for that person. In other words, they finally felt some effect, other than having to cough their heads off, from smoking it, and it still works for them 30 years later.

Imagine a beer advertisement with the caption, "This beer may have no effect upon some drinkers, no matter how much they may drink."

Nobody I know has ever come up with a theory of why marihuana works for most, but not for all in terms of feeling "stoned". However, many of the medical effects have nothing to do with the "stoned" effect, apparently. But some legitimate medical effects are related to "being and feeling stoned", I'm sure. For some, marihuana is an "herbal" medication because it makes them feel "stoned".

However, subjectively, the "stoned" effect is not necessarily proportional to how much marihuana a person uses. For some persons, if they smoke too much, soon, they don't feel "stoned" anymore at all.

It appears, also, that some ailments respond to totally different doses of marihuana, in the legitimate medical sense. Glaucoma, and other ailments, seem to need a lot of marihuana, more than most people would smoke just to get high.

Maine, or parts of it, has quietly liberalized marihuana laws. There are medical dispensaries and a general decrim. environment there. I have been told that Maine is much more liberal with marihuana than is apparent, and that it's nearly legal there, even for persons who are not severely ill medical patients.

In West L.A., Santa Monica, and other California areas, many consider it more or less legal now.

In early November 2005, the voters of Denver, Colorado, voted "YES" to remove the city's marihuana law, i.e., to make marihuana legal in Denver, was their choice. By 2007, the voters of Denver passed a "Lowest Law Enforcement Priority" initiative that gave the 2005 law change some extra teeth after city officials began using the Colorado state law against those arrested in Denver for marihuana. (In 2006, Colorado voters did not legalize marihuana at the state level.) In 2009, it is expected that Breckenridge, Colorado will legalize marihuana. Summit County, along with other counties in Colorado, voted overwhelmingly in favor of legal marihuana in 2006.

Back in 1975, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that marihuana was legal there under certain conditions, under state law. This has been upheld in recent cases, but it's still up in the air.

Perhaps licit and illicit hard and soft drugs should all be at least decriminalized to help end the terror that surrounds all aspects of this area of life. If people are afraid to talk about them, then "terror" is the essential aspect of that topic.

* - (27 February 2007 YouTube) University of Washington Student Video about Amsterdam Coffee Shops. Even with flaws, this is still one of the best videos about downtown Amsterdam cannabis coffee shops in one 5 minute news-story.

e - (17 Feb. 2010 www.youtube.com) President Barack Obama Presents Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Peter Lemon with a new award, May 1, 2009. I never did a YouTube search for "Peter Lemon" until Feb. 2010.UpTake Video.

e - (9 March '09 www.hightimes.com, www.youtube.com) High Times' grow editor Jorge Cervantes GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM. But, lot's of good advice to those who've never been there. From this website at YouTube.

* - (20 August '08 google video) An Evening with Howard Marks. Howard Marks is a scholar, an English teacher, a convicted marihuana trafficker, a candidate for Parliament, and a leading member of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance in Britain.

e - (18 March '08 YouTube, other sources) "Our friends at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union captures a great moment from the United Nations Committee on Narcotics Drugs where UN Drug Czar Antonio Maria Costa refused to answer a question (((from a Mr. Polak, a Psychiatrist and member of ENCOD from the Netherlands, etc.))) about why the Netherlands has a lower marihuana usage rate than surrounding countries. Not only does Costa refuse to answer, but he is visibly agitated at the question and the questioner. Enjoy... http://youtube.com/watch?v=fe208nLLEwk", says the source of my source, I think. Probably came from http://www.marihuananews.com.

e - (7 March '09 www.youtube.com) Secretariat Joep Ommen, of encod.org, speaks about his viewpoint to be presented at the upcoming U.N. Conference on drugs this coming March. From this HCLU YouTube website. Also go to Dare to Act for instructions on how to support Amsterdam and Dutch cannabis coffee shops, etc. Dare to Question, a YouTube place to post YOUR COMMENTS in support of Dutch drugs policy, in general, and especially in relation to their coffee shop system for marihuana.

e - (7 March '09 www.youtube.com) UN Drug Chief, Gets in Argument With Dutchman. Also go to Dare to Act to find out how to support Amsterdam and Dutch cannabis coffee shops, etc. at the U.N., etc. Dare to Question, a YouTube place to post YOUR COMMENTS in support of Dutch drugs policy, in general, and especially in relation to their coffee shop system for marihuana.

e - (16 June '08 www.reason.com/www.pot-tv.net) DREW CAREY moderates a news story about a youthful medical marihuana user in California whose medical marihuana supplier is being raked over the coals of injustice by the feds. OK, so the state wants him to buy it from the drug underground. Maybe he can score some meth., cocaine, LSD, STP, DMT, ecstasy (MDMA), Seconal, heroin, crack, or other more interesting things while he's at it, and distribute them to all of his classmates, rather than going down to the marihuana dispensary, where only marihuana is available.

e - (19 Feb. '08 added 24 Jan. '08YouTube/www.pot-tv.net) NEGATIVE CORRELATION statistically between marihuana grow-ops, and the possession of firearms by those maintaining the grow-operations, in British Columbia, Canada. According to Attorney Kirk Tousaw, 24 percent of all Canadians in B.C. possess firearms (!), while only 6 percent of marihuana grow-op operators (raided) possessed firearms. That means that police are much more likely to encounter firearms among the general population than among marihuana growers in B.C., Canada.

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NOTE: ninth article moved to Colorado in late 2005, after Denver citizens voted to legalize weed there in early November 2005. I had
considered moving out to Denver when I heard they were going to vote on it, but instead, went to Holland about 3 weeks before the Cannabis Cup.
When I got home from Holland, I immediately moved out to Colorado, and helped with volunteer ballot access petitioning for state legalization in 2006,
which received a 41% YES vote from all participating Colorado voters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

e - Above the Ignorance website videos page. Above the Ignorance website main page. (They erroneously state that marihuana contains carcinogens - not true. When marihuana is burned, like any other plant material, carcinogens are created, but it's not associated with any active ingredients. Latest research may or may not still show that marihuana, even smoked marihuana, to have anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties. Go to NORML.ORG for details.)

e - Free Book download: How to Grow Medical Marihuana, by Todd McCormick. You can also get information about how to order the actual book, which is very inexpensive anyway at the website.

e - CHRONOLOGY : OF MARIHUANA-REFORM in the U.K. and around the world. From this website. It ignores many important events such as Todd McCormick's successful importation of med. mar. into Denver airport in Dec. 1994, or shortly thereafter.

Strangely, the pseudo-word, "hashism", has popped up here and there, if you search for it on the internet. But still no reference books or other accepted sources acknowledge the existence of this pseudo-word, that never really existed except in obscure documents written by even more obscure bureaucrats. Yet, this strange non-word helped incarcerate and marginalize millions of citizens since the 1920's.

But eighty years later, modern communication will hopefully circumvent more ignorance and bad laws from being imposed upon the world's citizens.

After a stroke or two, and almost death, Jack Herer never quits. Promoting 2008 California fully legal marihuana and all other aspects of the cannabis plant legal also, he speaks at the 2007 Seattle Hempfest. Also famous med. mar. grower Eddy Lepp appears.

(1942)Hemp for Victory. Note: the original draft copies of the original Patriot Act, the U.S. Constitution, were written on hemp paper back in 1787 in Philadelphia. The original Gutenburg bibles, the first printed books in history, were also printed on hemp paper.

NOTE: one flaw of this film I noticed is that the announcer erroneously neglects to inform the public that the finest fabrics such as fine linens, were also made from hemp - not just the coarsest fabric and rope.

If this film doesn't make you really patriotic again, then nothing will. Pro-U.S., USDA film made during WWII to teach American farmers how to grow much more hemp which was desperately needed for many different industrial purposes. Discovered in the Library of Congress and publicized by Jack Herer beginning with early editions of The Emperor Wears No Clothes. The title of this book is from a fable by Hans Christian Anderson.

NOTE!! If you are having trouble, , right-click, or click here for instructions.

Note that even Jack Herer did NOT feel confident enough at the time this video was made, to claim that marihuana helped cure cancer. There was even less research available about that issue at that time. This video was probably made just before, or just after California's Proposition 215 win in 1996, before Jack had his first stroke around the year 2000. However, even in early versions of the Emperor..., Jack mentions 1970's research that unexpectedly showed that THC shrank tumors. That was the first clue.

(11 November '08, made early 2007), a new university student made marihuana coffee shop video from the University of Washington. Note: coffee shops that sell marihuana in the Netherlands, also sell coffee, juices, soft drinks, and other snack items that do not contain any illicit drugs.

"An Evening with Howard Marks." Howard Marks is a scholar, a candidate for parliament, one of England's biggest former hash dealers, a former resident of a U.S. prison, and a leading member of England's Legalise Cannabis Alliance organization, similar to NORML in the U.S. This is a quick time version of a video I found at POT-TV that is at video.google.com. This video was made before 9/11. I wish I had heard of him and this video before 9/11.

Note that in 1925-1928, although to some extent independent, Egypt was still considered part of the British Empire, and was still occupied and controlled to some extent by the British government and their so-called "lackeys". Around 1900, the British had banned the use and/or selling of hashish from tea cafes in Cairo, and then shut those same cafes when the cafes continued to operate serving only tea. (Note: the British gained military control over Egypt in 1882, although Egypt was nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire then.)

According to Wikipedia, the Second League of Nations Opium Conference did not fully ban cannabis, but allowed signatory countries of the treaty to allow use of it internally, and to export it under regulation and control. From around 1925 until about 1940 in the U.S., legal cannabis medicines remained in use, and was probably imported from the Far East. However, import/export of cannabis has not legally occurred for a long time apparently. I still think it's very useful to see what some in society thought about cannabis at that time.

An Evening With Howard Marks - MP4 for Ipod, Itunes, etc., found and downloaded at Google video. Note: Right-click, then select "Save Target As", if download doesn't work with left-clicking. Then run downloaded file with Quick-Time, or Itunes. (1 hour 41 minutes. 315 meg. May take 45 minutes to download, or longer.)

NOTE: my audio edit only includes the core issue - the League of Nations/U.S. orchestrated partial prohibition of cannabis that occurred in 1925 for the League treaty, 1928 for the U.K.

(1993/1994), Stichting Institute of Medical Marihuana - Holland.......... was started in 1993 by James Burton, an American glaucoma patient and research subject on medical marihuana. James tells his story. ("Stichting" means "non-profit organization".) James actually did more production and arranging for these videos than I have given him credit for. It was he who arranged to have the Cannabis Cup photo behind him during taping. Whose cup is it? I think it was received by, and may still be owned by Dion Markgraff or his former partners, Adam and Doug who still run "Hempworks" in Amsterdam, Holland's oldest hemp shop. (From tape 2 of Legal Marihuana in Holland; We Are Not Criminals; The Dutch Moral Majority Speak) videotaped late 1993, first sold late 1994 (12 minute play time - most camera work by Corolla.).

In 2005, SIMM lost their contract to supply the department of medical marihuana. He is now trying to fight this decision in court. Dutch government's medical marihuana program website. Link to old NORML Canada medical marihuana page. SIMM link. At one time, before the government Dept. of Med. Marihuana was formed, I think James had about 10,000 regular medical marihuana customers.

NOTE!! If you are having trouble, , right click, or click here for instructions.

Jack Herer, late November 1996

Jack Herer, ..... speaks at Positronics with Pieter D. Nieuwenhuis, a former Amsterdam city councilman. These interviews were arranged and planned by Michael Moran who also operated the camera some of the time. Fresh from overwhelming political victories of the 1996 California and Arizona medical marihuana and drug reform initiatives, in late November, Herer discusses all sorts of factors which contributed to the wins such as help and support from Barry Goldwater, Senator from Arizona and an American presidential candidate (1964 Republican candidate against Lyndon B. Johnson). Kennedy era politics. Soros, Zimmerman, Lewis, & Rockefeller donation to Proposition 215 helped it win.

.....Later, at GPRA, (notice the emerald green marihuana plants in the background, placed there just for this event) he speaks to the group about all sorts of interesting things such as Marihuana and Richard Nixon.

(Cameos of Richard Cowan, Michael Moran, Todd McCormick, and "Old Ed", the California creator/breeder of Skunk#1 who fled to the Netherlands after Reagan's marihuana crack-down in the early 1980's.)

Flashback: an actual news report of Jack's first visit to Holland in early November 1996 was web-published by NORML Canada at that time in 1996, and kept online for a few months. Jack came back to Holland after Prop. 215 passed, and atteneded the Cannabis Cup on that second November visit when these video interviews were conducted. However, Michael Moran never discussed any of this with me, the owner of the camera and microphone, until the day of the interview.

(I regret that this was not posted sooner. I was present for part of the interviews, operating the camera some of the time. I have other footage he took as well. Another person unnamed unknown to me may also have operated the camera.

Ninth Article Productions was no longer running ads or selling tapes by mid-1998, and I had volunteered to become NORML Canada's web maintainer in early '96. The last video editing I had done was in 1994. Now in 2005, I'm able to post this video directly to the web from my own hard-drive.) taped Nov. 1996, web published Jan. 2005 (About 52 minutes - rough edited. Direct tape to digital editing. Bad drop-out on tape.) Link to Jack Herer.

NOTE!! If you are having trouble, , right click, or click here for instructions.

(1993/1994), Quaker Secretary Hans Weening.......... discusses Dutch Drugs Policy and Quaker philosophy (from tape 2 - Legal Marihuana in Holland; We Are Not Criminals; The Dutch Moral Majority Speak) video from late 1993. First sold late 1994. Weening is not a "preacher", as most Quaker churches don't have preachers at all, in general. Quakers have "meetings" of friends. (10 minute play time).

The Hippie Conservative

NOTE: (late-mid-August 2011 - the video is no longer at YouTube. I don't know when they removed it. I have decided to remove these copies just to be safe. This was a good video even though I could not translate everything.)

DOWN WITH HEALTHCARE TYRANNY!!!!

The Herbalist Decree of 1542:

Michael Moran, late Novemeber 1996, ..... speaks at the High Times Cannabis Cup 420 afternoon council about legalizing or not legalizing marihuana, winning in court, the Herbalist Decree of 1542 from English common-law, and other things related to marihuana law reform.

A transcript of Mike's talk was already posted to the NORML Canada website back in 1997 or so.

I just found something Michael himself wrote about himself back in 1993 which I did not know until March 2007: click here. I knew bits and pieces of this, vaguely.

Note that Mike explicitly states in this video that all listeners should, "And in your state, go home and do that, wherever that may be", meaning, legalize marihuana in whatever method works in your area or state. I'm not sure exactly what the argument was between Mike and this lady from N.C. about legalization. Although Mike appears to be arguing against legalization, in the end, he firmly gives support to it in terms of supporting various state law changes.

8 minutes. Rough edited and posted to the web March 8, 2005. Removed Feb. 2010. Please see transcript for a word by word account.

Despite appearing very enthusiastic journalistically with Jack Herer just a few weeks previous, NORML Canada received no journalistic contributions from Mike much after about Jan., 1997, more or less. Also, he never mentioned his plans to me concerning any of the footage which he shot or produced.

Regardless, by 2005, the internet was developed enough for it to be posted directly to the web at nintharticle.com, and at YouTube.com a little later in 2007.

NOTE!! If you are having trouble, , right click, or click here for instructions.

Orig. VHS tape version sold mail-order beginning late 1993 until about late 1998 or 1999. Posted to the web in original form at http://nintharticle.com in Feb. or March 2005. In May 2007, added new title background and removed one inaccurate mention of bars and cannabis coffee shop overlap. In July 2007, added new and better car driving footage.

NOTE: if you have trouble playing these videos here, RIGHT-CLICK, then download the files ("save target as", or "download target data", etc., etc.). After downloading, you can play them with your favorite media player.

(Orig. tapes 1 and 2 of "Legal" Marihuana in Holland...) Two Sony Hi-8 CCD-V801 editing camcorders with digital timecode, both purchased at my local Circuit City store, were used. The first camera cost about $2000.00 in late 1991, the second one about $1000 purchased in early 1993. (There's a cameo video shot of one of the Sony cameras in Amsterdam in December 1996 at 51:02 in the Jack Herer video. At that moment, both cameras were probably almost worn out.), one obscure 1991 era High-8 era Olympus camcorder whose model number I can't recall. One computerized edit controller from a company called Future Video costing about $650.00 from New York City camera shops, capable of controlling the two Sony camcorders was utilized for all video editing of both videos, other than one minor announcer scene on Tape 2, which was done in an editing studio onto S-VHS. All titles were by a consumer priced digital titler by Videonics, which hooked up between one camera and the other camera. A simple battery operated analog sound mixer was used for audio mixing. Music could not be dubbed at the High-8 level. Therefore, the music was dubbed on the final S-VHS master from which VHS tapes were duplicated and sold 1993-1998. Tapes were sold retail mail-order from advertisements placed in High Times, and Relix magazine. (I remember checking on prices of digital editing equipment around 1994, and found that a suitable digital editing setup would have cost about $10,000.00 at that moment. Prices were dropping quickly, but my masters had already been made using computer controlled analog equipment.)

This website; all orig videos from 1992-1994, and 1996 material, and other material from YouTube, etc., posted beginning in January 2005. For this website 2005-2007, the Hi-8 masters or original Hi-8 camera tapes were captured into MicroSoft Windows Moviemaker, edited, then original music was re-dubbed. Some new dv material added recently.

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Some of the production audio editing/dubbing was done on an old Superscope cassette recorder that had a record audio limiter, an early Sony Walkman, and on a small Sony micro-casssette recorder, and onto and off of High-8 video tape - audio use only. The reason some odd and old equipment was used was to experiment with improving listening clarity obtained from some very marginal, highly amplified, but volume limited audio segments of "salvaged audio" which was "processed", then redubbed. You can actually hear the camera operator swallowing (tape one full length version, 28:58) on one segment of audio from her camera which was then highly amplified, and then limited, then redubbed.

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Quality was acceptable but not top quality. If all the original camera tapes could have been edited on computer, the video would have been better, especially for title video segments, some of which are 2 non-digital dubs from original. There was a lot of low light shooting without lamps and some big microphone problems were encountered. By taping some subjects with two cameras simultaneously, we got better camera shots, but hardly any of these "camera #2" shots are used at all. Some lost audio was salvaged from camera#2 when microphones failed and footage could not be re-shot. The best shots were outdoors in natural lighting with the external mike. I can't believe I made so many audio mistakes which were not repeated on tape two.

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Tape 1: I like the lack of authority figures and professional "experts", the use of many strangers "in the park", people using aliases, and anonymous talking heads. These give it the power of everyman, or the good use of the "guy or gal on the street", rather than the over-use of propped-up pseudo-expert types. In that sense, the 9th amendment connection, the "people's retained powers amendment", is even more appropriate. Who has the right to dictate what opinions are held naturally by the general population? No one.

The one problem I had was contacting and taping the very group I wanted for this video - pot-using entrepreneur types, professionals, working people, in mainstream European society. Seeing that demographic all the time in the coffeeshops in the era 1988-1991, was what inspired the video in the first place.

Yet, they turned out to be the one group least likely to go on camera.

The group MOST likely to want to take part in this video? HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!

Privacy is so big in Europe, I suppose, and prohibition over there still stifles, even today, normal political activity toward progress and reform. Part of that is "Amsterdam Red Light District Media Syndrome", which I am also responsible for exploiting, unfortunately. I suppose that Leiden was still too close to Amsterdam to reduce that effect. Think "Las Vegas", and I hope you see my point.

It was a good omen for me when Home Grown Fantasy, one of my favorite coffee shops, won the 1992 Cannabis Cup, about 8 months after we had shot our footage of the chess players there.

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Analog editing early 1990's Tape 1: about 15-20 hours of video interviews, etc., were recorded on about 10 or 11 2-hour tapes. These were edited down to about 1 hour of usable video. I made lots of technical and other errors, but was able to salvage the tapes to produce something watchable. All in all, it turned out amazingly well. The editing process took about 3 months of many long days of work. Various editing equipment was tried, and various false starts of versions were produced during the first few weeks. Tape 2 was a lot more cut and dried and easier to edit. It took probably less than 1 month to edit and prepare, and could have been done sooner for those with more spare time.

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Music was composed, independent of me, by my brother, and dubbed onto audio tapes from his home recording equipment which I know little about in technical terms. He also recorded some J.S. Bach tunes. Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach is the theme music for tape 2. I actually prefer the Fugue. I don't have a recording of it at the moment, but here it is. (poor sound quality).

Also, the camera work by Julia (tape 1), an English volunteer worker-helper-dead-head, was priceless, as was much other help. However, in many Dutch coffee shops, people are still a bit wary of cameras, and cameras are sometimes not allowed. I find this is a bit severe, and it isn't always the policy.

Holland: Hashish versus Marihuana, and the High Potency Marihuana Problem Myth. I never detected any difference of opinion concerning hashish versus marihuana in Holland in regard to potency. Hashish means "marihuana concentrate", and therefore, hashish is always more potent than the cannabis from which it was made.

Hashish is actually slightly more accepted in Holland and Europe compared to marihuana due to the fact that hashish has a much less extreme smell when smoked. Both are totally accepted and treated equally, generally. That's how it should be everywhere. Hashish is really no more strong than good marihuana, anyway, for all practical purposes. All this baloney about high potency marihuana or hash is just that: SPAM.

The same people who criticize "kind bud" high potency marihuana seem to disregard the fact that high potency hashish has always been readily available over-the-counter in Holland since around 1970.

So far, no one has asked for any re-edits. If you wish for a re-edit, contact me through YouTube messaging. To do that, you must first open a YouTube account - it's free and does not require you to upload any material.

Copyright: both tapes 1 and 2 of "Legal M..." were originally sold with full "public broadcast approval" included, in writing. This web publishing of all the videos pretty much continues in that vein, but with the words "copyright public domain 2005-2007", which continues with the original policy. The aim of this policy is to allow anyone to download, reproduce, copy, and/or distribute all or parts of the videos, as long as confusion or distortion is not introduced into the content. In 2005, the profit sharing provision included with the original VHS tapes has been removed since the videos are distributed free of charge over the internet, anyway, and no one ever made a profit with the tapes as far as I know.

Problems Playing/Downloading These Videos with some Browsers:

If you are NOT using certain web browsers (and I don't know why some work normally here, and some don't), you may experience the following problem: after clicking on a video to watch, a new browser window appears and begins to fill with what looks like random characters. This is not entirely a disaster.

Solution 1: You can actually just let the "random characters" fill the browser window until the data stops. This is actually the video data. It can take a few minutes or longer. Make sure the process is complete. Then, in the upper left-hand corner of your browser, click on "file", the click on "save as". Save the video file in a place you can remember it. After finding the saved file, right click on it, then select "open with". Open it with your favorite video viewing program.

Solution 2: position cursor over video link text for video you wish to watch,

then right click with mouse right button. A pop-down menu should appear with a number of choices. Choose the one called "save target as", "quick download", or "save link as". Save video in a place where you won't forget it. After saving video like this (unlike in Windows Media Player with I.E., under normal conditions, you cannot start watching the video until after it has finished downloading. Downloading can take quite a few minutes for large files), click on the desired video file name in the appropriate directory where the video file is located to automatically bring up your default video player software,

Or manually run an appropriate application like WINAMP or Windows Media Player. Under file, select "open", then go to the correct directory where you just put the desired video file, then open and run the video you wish to run.

Solution 3: Lately, most browsers have been working OK with this webpage. Make sure you have some media player installed on your computer capable of playing .wmv files, such as Windows Media Player, for example.

This problem disappeared after I started using YouTube. I now only have a few videos for download at www.nintharticle.com.

My Blurbs Section:

(12 April 2011) Actually, Expatica news items have reported lately that traffic in Holland is better than usual due to the recession. My opinion is that there is huge advantage in NOT having a car - you save megabucks.

ELECTRIC CAR RENTALS IN AMSTERDAM AND OTHER EUROPEAN CITIES. Or click here. A perfect country for electric cars: short distances, plenty of parking garages which could install "pay-to-recharge" stations, and so forth. Maybe, you could even try to get to Germany or elsewhere, also.

(13 March 2010) Checking Out Europe? Europe is a great place to go for most people, even marihuana users if not producers. The arrest/incarceration rate is so much lower than in the U.S., it's not even funny. There is no comparison.

Take the train. Use a bike, if possible.

Cars. My advice is that anyone who wishes to rent, lease, or buy a car in Europe, should first take some driving lessons on European driving rules. It isn't required in most temporary situations, but I highly recommend it.

American tourists and/or students can't generally buy their own cars in Europe. It used to be posssible, as it still is in Australia. But now you can only use rental cars (Avis, Hertz, others, etc.), or leased cars (or websearch), until you get a Residence Permit. But there are some other loopholes. If you have a job and are staying long term, read this from expatica.com about cars, etc. (Usually google is my choice, but sometimes Yahoo takes over one of my web-browsers.)

In Amsterdam, Doug or Adam of T. H. Seeds also may know of a commerical company that can sell you a "share" of an already purchased and insured car or commercial vehicle (small van?); which is shared with other foreign owners. (I heard about this years ago; I don't know if it's still functioning.)

You can buy some cars from your local dealer in the U.S., with European Delivery for later re-delivery to America from Audi, Porsche, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, and perhaps other European brands, all financed at low interest rates. With Mercedes, you can drive the car, fully insured all over Europe for up to X number of months. Then the car is automatically shipped to the U.S. for you to pick up. There you can sell it, and buy another one in the U.S. with European Delivery, and do the whole thing over again. Sometimes, it might be cheaper than renting a car there, which are usually sub-compacts anyway.

Motor-Homes. There's also a place in Amsterdam that will sell to you on contract with guaranteed repurchase, or rent to you, a small motor home, and sometimes cars, for use all over Europe. By the way, vehicles without insurance may be impounded in Europe, on the spot.

American entrepreneurs can also go over and start their own businesses in Europe if they can manage to follow all the rules. That's another way to get a Residence Permit and a car there - start a business. That way, you can legally buy a car for yourself, or the business if it can use one. That's what all the American pot entrepreneurs did such as Soma, the THC Seeds guys, James Burton, Adam, Doug and others did in the early 1990's. At the airport, you can get a visitors' "Yellow Pages" telephone booklet that has the phone numbers of lawyers who can help you set up your new Dutch company! (Burton started a non-profit or Stichting. That's a little different.) Perhaps, you could even start a branch of the Universal Life Church, there, or a new form of Calvinism.

One reason I didn't post this about cars earlier is my fear of terrible road accidents in Europe happening to Americans, Canadian, Mexicans, etc. DANGER DANGER DANGER!!!!! In some places (EVERYWHERE) where there are no stop signs in certain types of neighborhoods or small-road-types, cars can come at anytime from "the right", and smash into you at even blind intersections without stopping, legally. You have to know the rules and who has "right of way", and who doesn't. In other countries, buses always have "right of way". Parking fines are extremely expensive in Germany and Holland, and they tow within hours. Freeway congestion around the Randstad in Holland is terrible; large city to large city driving is discouraged except perhaps 9AM to 11 AM or so, and very late at night. Around 11 AM is when the major freeway jamming starts which lasts until about 8 or 9 PM, M-F.

However, even within the Randstad, driving within villages, cities, or towns is quite easy most of the time. It's driving between large cities that is not fun at all, usually.

Take the train. Use a bike, if possible.

(from 27 June '07 NORML/MAP) U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by Republican Pres. Gerald Ford, discusses his experience of having grown up in Chicago, home of Al Capone, 1920 to about 1933 or so, the prohibition era. Stevens voted for free speech in the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case in Alaska, in which the majority of justices voted against it.

Latest Updates from NORML on all legal cases there. (For constitutional challenge, click on the Cusick/Stroup case in Massachusetts. They were convicted, and are now appealing that guilty verdict.)

Howard Marks, scholar, big time former hash dealer, candidate for
parliament, says U.N. "war on marihuana" is based on illegible gibberish.

"For 86,000,000 Years, Marihuana Was Legal" Note: "skinning up" means rolling a joint in British slang. Howard Marks, famous former-hashish importer, English teacher, scholar, and candidate for parliament, originally from Wales. Howard Marks has discovered who, how, when, where, and what, (but not why) exactly started the international prohibition (but not the U.S. version of the marihuana-ban) of marihuana - it's on a video titled, "An Evening with Howard Marks", at this time point: (48:45:00 - 1:07:40 - 1:36:30). It was a certain delegate to the League of Nations second opium conference in 1925 (U.K. law changed in 1928), probably dominated by Western colonial "over-lords". The only reason partial prohibition of hashish and marihuana occurred, is that 1)the general public was almost totally ignorant about the subject, and 2)the League of Nations delegates were almost totally ignorant about it, and 3)the media, also, had very little information about it. Of course, they could have looked up the 1894 Indian Marihuana Drugs Commission Report, from the English government, if they wanted the known facts about marihuana. But they didn't. (They probably didn't even know that "hashish", "marihuana", "cannabis sativa", and "hemp" were all the same thing, the same plant. There was no NORML then, no Jack Herer, little if any advocacy for a thing that had always been legal.) Instead they listened to some totally unqualified clown with ridiculous theories about "hashism", "acute hashism", and "chronic hashism". This video was made before 9/11. (However, the clown story linked to is possibly about a very qualified clown.)

Note that in 1925-1928, although to some extent independent, Egypt was still considered part of the British Empire, and was still occupied and controlled to some extent by the British government. Around 1900, the British had banned the use and/or selling of hashish from tea cafes in Cairo, and then shut those same cafes when the cafes continued to operate serving only tea.

According to Wikipedia, the Second League of Nations Opium Conference did not fully ban cannabis, but allowed signatory countries of the treaty to allow use of it internally, with regulated export controls. Despite this error by Marks, I still think it's very useful to see what some in society thought about cannabis at that time.

Look up "hashism" in your dictionaries - HASHISM - Now, just where are the sacred U.N. legal documents regarding hashism???????

(posted here 17 Feb. '10) President Barack Obama, Att. Gen. Janet Napolitano, Defense Sec. Robert Gates, and1971 Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Peter Lemon at a Ceremony to Make New Citizens
of the United States, from Active Duty U.S. Armed Forces Personnel from other countries.
The President also presented The Outstanding American by Choice Award to Peter Lemon.

I don't doubt that people in almost any number of herb, alcohol, or drug affected circumstances, legally or not, have, in fact, done great deeds. I thought a lot about removing this item but decided to leave it just as a counterpoint to "reefer madness", prohibitionism in general, or overly-extremist anti-drug, herb, or alcohol propaganda or policies.

Click on photo to go to Medal of Honor pages.Rare photo of immigrantPeter Lemon actually wearing
his medal which he likes to pass around to groups of school children.He then places his medal back in the knick-knack-box at home where it's kept.

(Michigan - state where Peter Lemon lived at time of earning medal)

(Colorado - state where Peter Lemon lives today.)

(Canada - country where Peter Lemon was born)

One of the most famous recipients of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War, who was not a medical marihuana user, was using marihuana just before his courageous defense of his fellow soldiers, and the marihuana usage of this soldier and his comrades was widely reported in the press (.... Lemon could have been using marihuana for an unknown ailment, but I don't have a clue as to what it might be. Other current marihuana movement icons from the Vietnam War era are Dennis Peron (?) and James Burton (glaucoma). Burton had glaucoma before he first used weed, and inadvertently discovered it helped glaucoma.) :

The actual citation read by President Nixon is as follows:

The President of the United States
in the name of The Congress
takes pleasure in presenting the
Medal of Honor
to

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Lemon (then Sp4c.), Company E, distinguished himself while serving as an assistant machine gunner during the defense of Fire Support Base Illingworth. When the base came under heavy enemy attack, Sgt. Lemon engaged a numerically superior enemy with machinegun and rifle fire from his defensive position until both weapons malfunctioned. He then used hand grenades to fend off the intensified enemy attack launched in his direction. After eliminating all but 1 of the enemy soldiers in the immediate vicinity, he pursued and disposed of the remaining soldier in hand-to-hand combat. Despite fragment wounds from an exploding grenade, Sgt. Lemon regained his position, carried a more seriously wounded comrade to an aid station, and, as he returned, was wounded a second time by enemy fire. Disregarding his personal injuries, he moved to his position through a hail of small arms and grenade fire. Sgt. Lemon immediately realized that the defensive sector was in danger of being overrun by the enemy and unhesitatingly assaulted the enemy soldiers by throwing hand grenades and engaging in hand-to-hand combat. He was wounded yet a third time, but his determined efforts successfully drove the enemy from the position. Securing an operable machinegun, Sgt. Lemon stood atop an embankment fully exposed to enemy fire, and placed effective fire upon the enemy until he collapsed from his multiple wounds and exhaustion. After regaining consciousness at the aid station, he refused medical evacuation until his more seriously wounded comrades had been evacuated. Sgt. Lemon's gallantry and extraordinary heroism, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

(End of Citation)

Newspaper quote:

Press reported corroborative details from Detroit under a June 22, 1971, dateline:

A Congressional Medal of Honor winner says he was "stoned" on marihuana the night he fought off two waves of Vietcong soldiers and won America's highest military honor....

It was April 1, 1970, when Mr. [Peter] Lemon, an Army Specialist 4, used his rifle, machine gun and hand grenades to smash a large attack on his position.

He fought the enemy single-handed and dragged a wounded comrade to the rear before collapsing from exhaustion and three wounds. At a medical center, he refused treatment until more seriously injured men had been cared for.

The dispatch quoted the injured hero as explaining: "It was the only time I ever went into combat stoned."

"You get really alert when you're stoned because you have to be. We were all partying the night before. We weren't expecting any action because we were in a support group."

Mr. Lemon continued: "All the guys were heads [confirmed marihuana smokers]. We'd sit around smoking grass and getting stoned and talking about when we'd get to go home."
(from http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/Library/studies/cu/CU57.html)

NOTE: this does not imply that smoking marihuana makes a person brave or "invincible", but it certainly does not impair good qualities as "drug-war" crusaders claim in their delusions. Historians should check to see if any evidence exists of other drug, alcohol, or herb affected heroic acts throughout world history, until the current prohibitionist, anti-history, and anti-intellectual, era.

I know I've heard or read that many people believe that alcohol creates a sort of courage - in fact, some refer to that as "Dutch courage". In fact, militaries all over the world often make sure their soldiers, sailors, and pilots can get intoxicated from alcohol or other drugs. The British Navy used to, or still does on occcasion, give out rum to their naval personnel.

Here's a TV history archive which chronicles Mr. Lemon's media event from June 21, 1971. click here. If that doesn't work, I saved a copy on my own hard-drive. (from Vanderbilt University; Nashville, Tennessee).

Although a pilot, sailor or soldier who knows about an upcoming battle could plan things ahead of time, Sergeant Peter C. Lemon and fellow soldiers had no such advanced warning, being in a position far from the usual expected battles.

"I have never used cannabis in my life, but I am passionate in my belief that the law must be changed and that there must be a separation
between safe soft drugs, and potentially fatal hard drugs if we are to cut crime and reduce harm. I made this protest in support of the first cannabis coffee shop in Britain,
which operated peacefully in nearby Stockport for more than a year, and in support of its founder, my namesake, Colin Davies. He has now been
sentenced to three years' imprisonment, but if he was in Holland he would have been given a license by the local council. The Dutch policy
of permitting cannabis coffee shops has ensured that cannabis users need never come across heroin dealers. It has been hugely successful. Holland
now has the smallest problem of drugs misuse in Europe, and the lowest rate of heroin addiction. The separation of soft and hard drugs works,
and we should follow this example."

Attributes of Hashish/Cannabis Cafes-Teahouses-Coffee Shops:

In Europe, if you say "legal marihuana", a large percentage of people might think of Amsterdam or Barcelona weed cafes, though it isn't actually legal in either place except for medical users. Also, the cafe setting for using it for most people is probably what comes to mind if the words "legal marihuana" is being discussed, rather than medical marihuana. The tobacco issue is different there, with that stuff often being used with marihuana which totally baffles most visitors from North and South America, though that's also where tobacco originated. But most N. Americans would never mix weed with tobacco.

Do Dutch cannabis coffee shops have to serve everybody??? No. Just like bars and pubs, anyone can be kept out. The operators have always reserved the right to control access to bars, pubs, cafes, coffee shops etc., etc. But in general, everyone is allowed who is old enough. Some coffee shops cater to this or that clientele, just like clubs, bars, pubs, or cafes. In general, the larger the place, the more varied the clientele.

There are some marihuana users who are not having an enjoyable and positive experience from their usage of cannabis. Cannabis cafe operators have to keep the environment positive for everyone.

Contrary to rumors, the cannabis coffee shop in Holland is not the only place there where people can use cannabis. Anybody, any business, any home owner, can allow cannabis usage on their premises. However, since cannabis is not yet fully legal in the Netherlands, all of this falls into a mostly unregulated "grey area". What this means is that anyone aware that marihuana is being used by a particular person or persons other than inside a cannabis coffee shop, can spoil the day of those people using it by calling the cops. If you're not inside a cannabis coffee shop at that moment, you must stop the usage of cannabis. In that sense, the cannabis cafe is the only "safe-zone" for cannabis users in Holland.

I expect France, Germany, the U.K., or some other country to actually legalize weed before Holland.

Social Healing: staying to oneself too much is considered a sign of a social problem in most European countries; therefore, the cannabis coffee shop/cannabis social club is a normal expression of life for those who would prefer the safer choice: "soft-drugs" over harder things like alcohol, for social purposes. Also, those who who don't use cannabis often mingle in such places with friends.

In the Dutch Native environment, unless there's a celebration or special event, it is generally expected that joints, aka "pre-rolls", and pipes are not passed around nearly as often as in the less developed areas of the world, in the same way that persons in Holland also usually have their own glass of milk, and their own glass of beer, and their own individual brownies and individual sandwich. (So if your joint disappears in the group, they thought you were gifting it to them!)

Tourists and visitors to Holland are the only ones really passing pipes and pre-rolls, except in mixed social settings with lots of foreigners still with bad habits.

There is no chronic shortage of weed in the Netherlands for many decades, so the practice of sharing pipes or pre-rolls (the new name for "joints" in the USA) with friends is much less common. It could also be due to the rational choice to be a little more careful in terms of being clean.

BYOM? Some cannabis coffee shops there have sometimes required that all partrons buy their weed in the same shop where they use it, meaning you can't bring any in from outside. However, those shops usually go out of business! Nobody likes that policy.

Freedom of choice in terms of buying various types of cannabis.

Freedom from irrational marihuana policies.

Freedom from crime, fear, extreme anarchy, and terrorism.

However, mild anarchy is actually what the coffee shops are all about, as they are actually all still illegal to some extent. Or rather the weed is still illegal while the shops are legal which sell it.

Tobacco, Alcohol? In nearly all cannabis coffee shops, freedom from the threat of alcohol and tobacco. (In order to protect the health of workers in cafes, restaurants, and bars, tobacco has been banned by the Dutch government in all public places of business, except possibly in small owner-operated bars. This tobacco ban does not apply to PRIVATE CLUBS, such as Cannabis Social Clubs!)

Tobacco? Some Europeans and Americans still roll joints using tobacco in them, along with weed and/or hash, and/or hash and/or "honey oil" even. But most large bars and large pot coffee shops have banned tobacco in Holland.

Freedom from potentially fatal hard-drugs. The coffee shops were initially promoted at a time when death from hard-drugs was all too common in the Netherlands. A person cannot overdose on marihuana regardless of dosage.

Freedom from lack of doughnuts! For the same reasons that any other storefront could be used such as doughnut shops, restaurants or cafes, cannabis coffee shops can also be used by the DEA and cops in helping to catch those using more dangerous illegal drugs, perhaps, such as heroin, meth., or PCP.

Some coffee shop owners have told me that.

Meeting place for nearby neighborhood with snacks, etc., and normal coffee and tea items. The neighborhood interface is important in Holland. Unless located in the "centrum", the neighborhood relation is important, and there also. And cannabis isn't the only purpose of the Dutch (cannabis) coffee shop.

There are many very quiet cannabis coffee shops around Holland in neighborhoods where tourists rarely visit. But sometimes they do. You are more likely to see British or Central European ex-pat workers in them, rather than tourists. Otherwise, Dutch citizens predominate.

The dual purpose of being also for those not using cannabis at all, for these more hidden, less touristed cannabis coffee shops, especially, is often overlooked by the international news media. We're talking about people using normal snack items, here, but no cannabis. There is no "dope-den" mentality, or negative stigma, for the Dutch cannabis coffee shop in most areas in the first place; otherwise, regular citizens not using weed would not go into them at all. But they do all over Holland in the less touristed areas, especially.

It is also true in Europe that non-drinkers also have to end up using pubs for many purposes.

Before about 10 years ago, or when the mobile phone became so dominant all over the world, many people used to make quick pay phone calls from pubs, historically speaking, regardless of whether drinkers or not. Likewise the Dutch cannabis coffee shop has many useful socially accepted purposes, other than being only for the purpose of using cannabis by most of those who visit.

Pride

Quality

Medical Marihuana is recognized in the Netherlands, but it isn't necessary to have a doctor's recommendation to use or buy it in a cannabis coffee shop. There may be discounts or subsidies for medical users who have a doctor's prescription. There is a government Department of Medical Marihuana, and at one time, this agency made medical marihuana available to medical users, but it was very expensive without insurance or subsidy help. There are also one or two special medical marihuana coffee shops - one is in Groningen. It is likely that these medical marihuana shops do not allow tobacco at all unlike the regular cannabis coffee shops.

But who knows, maybe they allow medical tobacco and medical beer as well.

Hashish - Marihuana Coffee Shop Report :

NOTE: the entire premise of this website and those related to it, is that cannabis, hashish, trichomes, marihuana, marihuana, ganja, hemp, grass, and so forth, when used as a crude smoked drug by itself, unmixed with tobacco or anything else, is a "soft-drug", and is basically harmless. This belief is the basis of the Dutch "soft-drugs" cannabis coffee shop system.

I am against any special laws against hashish, trichomes, thc, Marinol, Dronabinol, or any other things witih thc in it, being treated differently than crude natural cannabis.

Things which kill very slowly such as tobacco, or which don't kill at all, such as cannabis, are NOT included as poisons or "hard drugs". However, you can kill someone quickly with heroin, alcohol, barbituates, opiates, sedatives, and tranquilizers if the victim takes too much, or overdoses.

In spite of that, addicts are affected differently in terms of dosage. This is why some things are called "hard drugs".

1933 HISTORY. Although the 21st Amendment was not yet in effect until Dec. 5, the following took place immediately after FDR took office: March 8, 1933 (Wednesday) The newly appointed U.S. enforcement director for Prohibition announced that federal agents would no longer raid places where liquor was served, concentrating instead on manufacturers and transporters, and leaving it up to the individual states to handle a "speakeasy". [31]

It is important to realize that the lack of deadly overdose deaths from hard drug usage occurring in the Netherlands is one of the main reasons for the continued tolerance for such places continuing to exist there for many decades now.

(29 February 2016) Denver Social Cannabis Usage initiative: Ballot Initiative. This one is a reincarnation from July 2015, that would be more friendly to existing businesses who want special areas for marihuana consumption. (This is the one which actually made the ballot and won the election, and which I supported.)

(10 December 2015 High Times) Social Cannabis Usage in the USA: Radical Rant: How the Next 5 Legal Marihuana States Differ From the Current 4 Legal States for Consumers.

(6 June 2015) World Famous Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, run by NORML chapter. I'm sorry for not putting this here earlier, but this place was only for medical users only in the past. I don't know about the present. I am very curious as to whether this policy will change after legalization.

(17 April 2015) (Guelph, Ontario, Canada) V stands for Victory!!!! Guelph business owner never wanted fame - lived in Amsterdam once - now he opens a quiet cafe for the users of cannabis open from 12 until 12.

(9 March 2015) Founder of, and Legal Counsel to NORML, Keith Stroup has written an excellent editorial about The Need for Marihuana Lounges, "Cannabis Cafes", or "Cannabis Coffee Shops", originally published at www.marijuana.com.

(15 December 2013 High Times Magazine February 2014 Issue) Jorge Cervantes reports in passing that cannabis social clubs in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, his place of residence half of the year, are now open "for business" to the general public, more or less, and are similar to the cannabis coffee shops in Amsterdam.

Other than being mentioned in the interview with Jorge, no details of actual policy in Barcelona were mentioned, such as tobacco, alcohol, and other aspects of policy there.

(3 May 2013, posted 10 July 2013 ) Maastricht Court Rules Local Coffee Shops Must Serve Foreigners Again Starting May 5th, 2013. (There is contradictory information out there, but so far, ENCOD's reporting has been accurate when the facts were checked out.)

(16 May 2011 Expatica.com) European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has said that, "Europe needs the Netherlands and its innovative spirit".

However, nowhere in the article is there any mention of specifically what innovations the Dutch have that Barroso is so impressed with.

(2007 Unicef report) Netherlands ranked number one by U.N. for raising kids! (The BBC writer concentrates on the assumption that expecting less from kids, is the primary characteristic of Dutch policy. I don't think so. The primary characteristic that I noticed there, is that children speak out openly, and are listened to more in Holland than in most other countries apparently. They are not told to "shut-up", and be seen, but not heard, in Holland.)

ANSWER: IN THE U.S., children and parents don't talk openly about such things for many strange legal reasons. The drug war has destroyed the parent-child relationship. In the U.S., many parents feel they must take blood, hair, or urine samples to find out if their children are using drugs. If they just ask, the children are usually afraid to speak openly, if at all. Fear and secrecy rule the U.S. parent-child relationship in terms of drugs. (Don't honor thy father and thy mother. Lie to them.)

(23 Nov. '10 YouTube from High Times Cannabis Cup, Amsterdam) Joep Ommen, Secretariat of ENCOD, Gives Status Report on Some of Europe. Second video. Word definition: "blower" - (Dutch-Euro-English-slang) someone who smokes cannabis. , as in "...blowing(smoke rings from a cannabis cigarette or pipe) in the wind....", from Bob Dylan's song probably. This is a very popular song in Holland, like most '60's hippie-rock music still. That slang term is not well received by native English speakers. There are many such screwed up things between languages and cultures.

THIS IS NOT THE CAR I SAW ONLINE FROM AUSTRALIA IN 2004.
That car looked more like a formula 1 car, but it wasn't. But it was similar.

On the other hand, I do remember the Australians using race cars in their marihuana legalization promotional activities a few years ago. Maybe the word "blower" in this case refers to a super-charger. Is this the correct analogy? (Blower - English car slang (England) for engine super-charger.)

(6 Sept. '10) Accurate Information about Dutch Marihuana Coffee Shops and Policy: a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times from Encod President Frederick Polak.

(30 March 2010) I JUST found this website - www.nolvanschaik.info! I thought the articles had disappeared.

Just to refresh everyone's memory, there's this cannabis coffee shop owner in Holland named Nol van Schaik from Harleem, and he actually tried to "expand" his coffee shop "empire" outside of Holland. With partners, he tried to open ONE in Belgium, and then ONE in England. The English event is referenced here by this Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Chris Davies, a member of the Liberal Democrats in England.

At the moment, as you can see, there's this HUGE threat from city hall, or parliament, to shut all the coffee shops in Holland, as usual.

Flower power in the land of flowers. In the not-always-chaotic midst of the late 1960's/early 1970's hippie/peace/flower power revolution, some young people in Holland revolted against the drug law norms, and opened some marihuana coffee shops which were against the law. By the late 70's-early 80's period, this revolt had been "semi-confirmed" as having been the right decision by the judicial authorities who finally issued some form of acceptance of the concepts involved. By the late 1990's, municipalities were issuing coffee shop licenses, but the basic semi-legal situation was still the basis of the whole shaky arrangement.

The overall impression in Holland, though, is that of legal hash and weed, regardless of these subtle distinctions.

(Summer 2009) However, in other parts of Europe, they're starting to talk politically about legalizing marihuana. For example, the daughter of the president of Romania, Elena Basescu, ran for and was elected to the European Parliament. She had previously called for legalizing marihuana, but may have recanted under pressure.

However, if your boss doesn't want you to smoke weed during work, they can probably prevent you from keeping your job. You probably have no legal right, in absolute terms to use it, yet. However, most people have no trouble using marihuana while not working, studying, and/or having all types of jobs. Some also can smoke it during coffee breaks at work. Tobacco and smoking, in general, are under attack everywhere.

If you visit Holland short-term to smoke weed, you will be a "drug tourist", legally speaking. This is not the same as going there to drink wine. Drug tourists are criminals, under Dutch law. However, most American drug touri...., I mean American citizens, don't have trouble there. You are probably under surveillance, so don't talk with strangers or loudly about your grow room back home, or your friends', when in Holland. When you get back home, the local cops may know what you did and said there, already. Personally, I have never suspected Dutch storefronts themselves at anytime; nor have I ever seen any such evidence. The Dutch couldn't survive with that sort of reputation.

The news there is full of items concerning big hashish - marihuana busts, and marihuana coffee shops closed for infractions, etc., etc. Small amounts are nearly legal, but large amounts are not legal.

(7 January '09) Why Keep It Secret?A reminder of what the European Parliament last stated publicly about pan-Europe illicit drug policy, as far as I know.

This statement was reconfirmed in the early 2000's as still being the official message.

NOTE: in November 1997, the EU Parliament had very little real power, and functioned only as an advisory body. Gradually, it is becoming more and more functional with real power.

(3 January '09 www.telegraph.co.uk) The thing to remember is that every town and every province have their own marihuana coffee shop policies. There is national control, but more local control.

All Sorts of Currents in Amsterdam and the Netherlands about marihuana and coffee shops and "drug tourists". Very little about alcohol trouble, and so forth.

They do mention the fact that 80% of the Dutch support the hashish - marihuana coffee shop idea and reality in some form, though it is different slightly all over, and more different now than 15 years ago in some respects. The Dutch coffee shop came out of a fairly unregulated environment in the beginning. It could go back in that direction again. I've heard that it already has in some areas where snack bars or art galleries may be taking over the marihuana trade where coffee shops were shut down.

If you use alcohol, you're not a drug tourist. If you use marihuana AND you're not from Holland or don't have a residence permit to live there, you are a drug tourist, not a regular tourist. You have fewer rights than the wine tasters.

No one is discussing the fact that marihuana is safer than alcohol. Accept reality.

(20 July '07 High Times) Ethan Nadelman of DPA to speak at Edinburgh University about Dutch Coffee Shops. Ethan Nadelman's lecture, The Global War On Drugs, takes place on November 1 at 6.30pm in Edinburgh City Chambers.

Comparing the heavily exposed and the non-exposed infants, the Brazelton clusters on day 30, showed that the offspring of heavy-marihuana using mothers had significantly higher scores on:

- the Orientation cluster

- the Autonomic Stability cluster

- reflexes

- habituation to auditory and tactile stimuli, and to animate auditory stimuli

- higher degree of alertness

- capacity for consolability

- less irritability

- had fewer startles and tremors

- better physiological stability at one month

- required less examiner facilitation to reach an organized state

- more socially responsive

- the quality of their alertness was higher

- their motor and autonomic systems were more robust

- they had better self-regulation

- they were more rewarding for caregivers than the neonates of non--using mothers at one month of age

From the Schools of Nursing, Education and Public Health, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Received for publication Sep. 21, 1992; accepted Received for publication Sep. 21, 1992; accepted June 30, 1993

U.S. Mayors Declare Drug War a Failure

July 18, 2007

by BOB CURLEY

The mayors of America's large cities have unanimously approved a resolution stating that the drug war "has failed" and calling for a harm-reduction oriented approach to drug policy that focuses on public health.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted the resolution during its June 21-26 annual meeting in Los Angeles, calling for a "new bottom line" in drug policy that "concentrates more fully on reducing the negative consequences associated with drug abuse, while ensuring that our policies do not exacerbate these problems or create new social problems of their own; establishes quantifiable, short- and long-term objectives for drug policy; saves taxpayers money; and holds state and federal agencies responsible."

Sponsored by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the resolution states that the drug war costs $40 billion annually but has not cut drug use or demand. It slams the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) drug-prevention programs -- specifically, the agency's national anti-drug media campaign -- as "costly and ineffective," but called drug treatment cost-effective and a major contributor to public safety because it prevents criminal behavior.

"This Conference recognizes that addiction is a chronic medical illness that is treatable, and drug treatment success rates exceed those of many cancer therapies," the document states.

The resolution condemns mandatory minimum sentences and incarceration of drug offenders, particularly minorities, and called for more control of anti-drug spending and priorities at the local level, where the impact is most acutely felt.

"U.S. policy should not be measured solely on drug-use levels or number of people imprisoned, but rather on the amount of drug-related harm reduced," according to the resolution. The document calls for more accountability among federal, state and local drug agencies, with funding tied to performance measures, more treatment funding and alternatives to incarceration, and lifting the federal funding ban for needle-exchanges.

The resolution, which will be used to guide the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Washington lobbying on addiction issues, passed with minimal debate, clearing two committees and the general assembly by unanimous votes.

"The mayors are clearly signaling the serious need for drug policy reform," said Daniel Abrahamson, director of legal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), who worked with Anderson's staff to draft the resolution. Daniel Robelo, a DPA legal research assistant, said the resolution could become an "incredibly powerful" advocacy tool for DPA and other drug-reform groups. "While it has no legal effect, it has a powerful symbolic effect," he told Join Together.

Alexa Eggleston, director of national policy for the Legal Action Center, which advocates for increased investment in addiction treatment and prevention, praised the mayors for acknowledging "that alcohol and drug addiction is a treatable medical illness and is supportive of expanding treatment to the approximately 21,000,000 Americans with alcohol and drug problems who need it, expanding effective prevention initiatives in communities nationwide, and fighting discrimination against people with addiction histories by repealing discriminatory laws and policies that prevent them from accessing employment, insurance, and other necessities of life."

But Tom Riley, a spokesperson for ONDCP, called the resolution a "grab bag" of DPA positions and a publicity stunt by proponents of drug legalization. "We don't think it's very serious," he said of the resolution, adding that to declare the drug war a failure "is a slogan rather than a policy proposal."

"Most of the mayors our office talks to consider drugs a huge problem in their communities and are anxious to get more resources for prevention, treatment and law enforcement," said Riley. "I don't know many mayors who are in favor of drug legalization."

Anderson is no newcomer to the drug issue; he has previously called the drug war "phony, inhumane, and ineffective," and his official biography calls him "an outspoken advocate for drug policy reform." He received the DPA's 2005 Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award for outstanding achievements in the field of drug policy reform.

Nor is Anderson alone in his harsh criticism of the drug war: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, seen as a rising political leader, recently stated that he's prepared to go to jail to protest a war on drugs that he sees as shackling African-Americans into poverty and feeding crime and murder in his city.

"I'm going to battle on this," Booker recently told the Newark Star-Ledger. "We're going to start this in the gentlemanly way. And then we're going to do the civil disobedience way. Because this is absurd."

Booker says he wants to see nonviolent drug offenders placed in treatment programs and halfway houses, not prisons, and to stop banning ex-offenders from jobs. "The drug war is causing crime," he said. "It's just chewing up young black men. And it's killing Newark."

Note: Which is correct? "The moral majority speak", or should it be, "the moral majority speaks"?

I chose the first form since they speak individually in this video, not in a unified voice. The moral majority are unified (is unified - same decision on which to use - EITHER is correct here) in some respects, but they are more diverse than unified in their voices. They have voices, not "one voice". Therefore, their voices "speak", is correct in this case.

Examples:

Their voices speak. Their voices speak in unison. Their voice speaks.)

(High Times has repeatedly published this information about Leary, etc.)

(1933-1970.) In fact, Timothy Leary's 1969 Supreme Court victory, demolishing Federal marihuana prohibition, at the end of this era that began in 1933, was, for all U.S. citizens, a crowning accomplishment for the 21st Amendment. On the other hand, the 21st Amendment is not mentioned at all, I don't think, in relation to Leary's court win. The effect of "legalizing marihuana" then, by the Supreme Court, on commercial activity related to it, was minimal, anyway.

In fact, it's the 5th amendment that is the primary aspect to this case involving Timothy Leary. The fact that Leary wins this on the basis of having had to have incriminated himself if he had applied for and received the Federal tax stamps as required then under U.S. law; also implies that Leary was then simply not considered a real criminal, anyway, in the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices!

That would change in the next few years for Timothy Leary, although I have no idea if the Court's changing in that same period, had any effect upon Leary's fate in or out of prison.

It was the Ronald Reagan Republican types, remember, that had huge disdain for almost any college professors, especially left wing professors. Even conservative or "right wing" college professors who supported Reagan were suspicious to Reaganites. NO DEBATE!

Remember Judge Douglas Ginsburg, the Reagan Supreme Court nominee who openly admitted to having used marihuana? That was too much for Reagan. It also might remind someone about PROFESSOR Leary's Supreme Court victory from 1969, which terrified Reagan. Reagan considered that victory to have been engineered by Soviet agents, probably, in order to totally destroy the United States.

Such was his imagination of the horrors of cannabis sativa, the devil incarnate, on earth!

During the Reagan years, college students no longer received grants as often - they got loans instead. Same situation in England with Margaret Thatcher.

Leary, I don't think, was a Marxist, but Reagan probably thought he was. Such was his imagination of the horrors of cannabis sativa, the devil incarnate, on earth!

Harm Reduction case. This case also sends a muted message of how to reduce harm caused by drugs; that although marihuana, a soft drug, should be legal, other more harmful drugs such as heroin, barbituates, opiates, etc., , may be too much for some people, and perhaps should not be legal. Or perhaps should be heavily regulated by "drug stores", or kept in locked medicine cabinets, etc., etc.

Marihuana, LSD, and Timothy Leary were associated with PEACE and LOVE, rather than violence, gangs, crime, or war. In other words, the very opposite of violence was the primary association with "counter-culture" drug usage in 1969. Therefore, the 21st Amendment was not associated with Timothy Leary's radical movement(s), as there was no widespread perception of there being many, or one, "Al Capone" of marihuana or LSD trafficking at that time. Illicit drugs were also much less expensive then. Marihuana was usually about $15 to $20 for a "lid", or just under an ounce. (But marihuana prices increased by about 1000 percent to about 2000 percent between about 1974, and 1985 - from about $20 an ounce for schwag, to about $200 to $400 dollars an ounce of kind bud.)

The hippie movement, that Leary was an iconic leader of, was similar in terms of non-violence to Dr. Martin Luther King's non-violent civil rights movement, for which Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Although this was three years before NORML's founding, and five years before High Times was first published, the "National Students Association", and the ACLU were involved with this case.

Just think, Nixon had been President for only about 4 months when one morning in mid-May 1969, he is informed that marihuana just became legal at the Federal level due to a U.S. Supreme Court decision while he is President! He didn't run on that platform.

This was reported in the media, but I don't recall any huge publicity about it. It could have encouraged anti-war demonstrators to gather inside the District of Columbia, and might have encouraged more people to try and smuggle marihuana across the borders, for a while.

It may have given some people the inspiration to try and legalize marihuana at the state level and federal level for good, or at least to decriminalize it for now.

It definitely sent another pro-marihuana legalization message around the world, to some extent.

I personally briefly spoke with one of Sarasani's employees in early May 2007, andhe confirmed to me precisely what international network TV news had reported in Fall 2003. Notethat coincidentally, S. Vietnam apparently stopped selling weed over the counter in 1968under orders from the LBJ admin. according to this reference from Vanderbilt U.
(Original source was at http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/brush/American-drug-use-vietnam.htm,
but someone may have moved it, or re-moved it. Not sure.)

Google translation of Aug. 24, 2007 article:

Utrecht - Mayor Brewer, after consultations with prosecutors and police, coffeeshop Sara Sani decided to immediately close. The trade-operate is withdrawn and the sale of soft drugs in the coffee shop is no longer tolerated. The closure follows the preliminary results of the police investigation into drug trafficking, which the involvement of employees of the coffee shop shows.

Photo: FBF
Friday, August 24 The police last five persons were arrested because they are suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. Research by the police revealed that on this day a transaction took place from 9.7 pounds soft drugs. The contact between buyer and seller in coffeeshop Sara Sani and placed in the preparation and delivery was at least one employee of Sara Sani involved. Also revealed that in a nearby building, the home of one of the businesses of Sara Sani, 37.3 kilos of soft drugs was present.

The tolerance requirements for coffee shops is a standard of 5 grams per person per day. The sale of almost 10 pounds soft drugs does not in any way to this standard. In the coffee shop policy is tolerated for the inventory items used a standard of 500 grams. It is known that the operation of a coffee shop in the rule introducing a more stock available. The size of the detected inventory is so high that only explained for the (joint) use for large scale operations, as determined on August 24.

Opiate Addiction Cures...

Is opiate and pain-killer addiction more common than thought? Is it curable or is that a lie?

In modern history, there have been entire periods of public delusion, created by the media and government and society itself, I suppose, that opiate addiction can easily be cured. Based upon these theories that opiate addiction can easily be cured, rehabilitation centers for opiate addiction have been opened and staffed, and customers charged for services. In fact, Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack inside such a rehab. clinic.

Did he get his money's worth?

Prior to the death of Jerry Garcia, there was another extremely famous rock musician, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, who in 1973 or so, was also reportedly completely cured of heroin addiction at a Swiss clinic that used technology similar to blood dialysis, or a technology of "blood swapping". It was commonly known and reported in books and magazines. This link indicates it wasn't true that this Swiss treatment even exists; much less that Richards used it.

Thousands of young people went to Switzerland, for some reason, to try heroin (Heroin?) for many years. Look up "Needle Park" in Zurich. Check to see what year it started, and what year it finally ended.

Historically speaking, this is the MOST SIGNIFICANT marihuana study I've seen for a LONG TIME. Well, ONE OF the most significant marihuana studies I've seen in about 15 years. This indicates that the endorphin system is probably strengthened by marihuana usage.

LSD and/or MDMA ("Ecstasy") have both been used legally by research Psychiatrists, in trials, to treat alcoholism and/or other types of addiction to sedatives, such as heroin (?) or other opiates or barbituates. Timothy Leary also wrote in the book, The Politics of Ecstasy, that LSD had cured many alcoholics such as Leary himself at that point in his life. Contact MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) for more information about these rare U.S. Government approved studies. But they don't sell psychedelic drugs. Sorry.

Ibogaine. There's also an entire movement of doctors, activists, and others, who think that Ibogaine can cure opiate addiction. The guy who started the Million Marihuana (sic) March is a major proponent of Ibogaine. He has always claimed that governments all over the world don't want anyone to know about Ibogaine.

Kratom, an herb from the Thailand area, is very much in the media these day; it is touted as an herbal treatment for opiate addiction.

Oct. 2010. I was watching on CNBC a few days ago that a new drug had been developed that may cure opiate addiction. Maybe they're telling the truth this time? Who knows!

Marihuana "Addiction" 100% Fraud!

Five major scientific government commissioned studies about marihuana: 1894 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, the 1930's-1940's Laguardia Committee, the 1940's U.S. Army study on marihuana, the 1972 Shafer Commission, and the 1970 era Canadian Le Dain Commission. All stated that cannabis used as a drug does not create dependence, or addiction.

Until quite recently, it was common knowledge that marihuana was not addicting. It still isn't addicting.

We do know that the endocannabinoid system is not screwed up or bypassed or attenuated by the injestion of marihuana cannabinoids in the same manner that the endorphin system is so affected by the opiates, when opiate addiction occurs. In other words, there is no physical addiction mechanism in the human body for cannabis. If you like weed now, you won't really go insane if you stop using it, like the poor heroin addict next door, who do go totally insane apparently if they can't get heroin every 6 hours (that's what the books state). Don't worry, your endocannabinoid system has not been harmed or compromised by cannabis.

If you're NOT a medical marihuana user, you can stop using weed easily! It is NOT an addicting drug for the mainstream-healthy segment of society. That is a well known historical FACT! A healthy person who truely chooses to stop using weed should not have any apparent withdrawal symptoms, or reappearing symptoms of any type, since they didn't have any medical symptoms of illness in the first place, did they? Withdrawal symptoms for weed have only been mentioned in recent years, and insomnia is about the only one that was mentioned. The five major studies mentioned in paragraph one didn't mention a single withdrawal symptom; they all simply said marihuana is not addicting at all.

Until around the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency, having a nearly exclusive preference for a particular item, in and of itself, was not seen as an example of physical addiction, but merely the exercise of ordinary freedom to choose.

For example, water is not addicting though everyone craves it everyday for all of their lives. Some eat cheeseburgers everyday, and seem to exhibit actual withdrawal symptoms if they can't have that precise food, but few would call that a true addiction other than fraudsters or fakes. (In my opinion, the use of better quality foods leads to less obsessive eating problems. More satisfaction leads to less compulsive over-eating.)

QUESTION: what happened in terms of scientific knowledge about cannabis between the time of the last study mentioned in paragraph 1, about 1972 and the year 1989, when Reagan finished his last term? Jack Herer states in The Emperor Wears No Clothes that a multitude of incredible medical studies were conducted 1966-1976 or so, that revealed that cannabis was essentially, a miracle drug, and was good for tumors, cancer, and many other diseases. Herer states that Ronald Reagan actually had many of these studies destroyed. However, many were still kept at the universities where they had been conducted, or somewhere else, so some of these studies have resurfaced, but not all of them.

I wish I had a list of the lost studies mentioned in The Emperor Wears No Clothes, the ones that were totally destroyed.

Science and truth suffered under Ronald Reagan in certain respects.

A Reagan Era Cannabis Research Library.

Here are the quotes from Herer's book currently on the web (chapter 6):

Destroying the Public Record

Some 10,000 studies have been done on cannabis, 4,000 in the U.S., and only about a dozen have shown any negative results and these have never been replicated. The Reagan/Bush Administration put a soft “feeler” out in September of 1983 for all American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries.

Scientists and doctors so ridiculed this unparalleled censorship move that the plans were dropped…for the moment.

However, we know that large amounts of information have since disappeared, including the original copy of the USDA’s own pro-marihuana film Hemp for Victory. Worse yet, even the merest mention of the film was removed from the official record back to 1958, and has had to be painstakingly reestablished as part of our national archives. Many archival and resource copies of USDA Bulletin 404 has disappeared. How many other such priceless historical documents have already been lost?

Luckily, the marihuana movement is so strong in 2010 that it is unlikely that such a strange period of ignorance and regression could ever take place again.

Question: how was Reagan able to violate the law? (Assuming it's really true that Reagan personally ordered the destruction of the studies,) I'm sure that what he ordered to be done in 1983 was totally ILLEGAL under U.S. and international law. Sorry to remind anyone of this simple fact. It also seems a bit anti-Christian, anti-Muslim, anti-Mormon, anti-Hebrew, anti-Persian, anti-Hindu, anti-VooDoo, and anti-everything.

They were not into war. They were into peace, love, and music for everyone, most of the time. Some of them used marihuana,
at times. The Drug War was started to protect society from psychotic people like them. ("Drug War": the national highway robbery system.)

According to the U.N.'s own statistics, the large major country with the most marihuana usage in the world, is Canada. Therefore, if long-term cannabis usage really results eventually in insanity, then Canadian mental health experts should be very familiar with this phenomenon. The media should travel to Canada and ask mental health experts there if cannabis has really caused an outbreak of insanity in Canada! It that theory is false, this should be publicized widely, and the Egyptian theory from 1925 should be discredited.

According to all nations who are supporters of the U.N. and its previous incarnation, the League of Nations, most of these guys, if they have been using marihuana all these years, have to be incurably insane by now, if they have used marihuana all these years. According to the greatest marihuana expert of all of history (the Egyptian delegate to the League of Nations 2nd Opium Conference - 1925), there is no known antidote for the short term or long term effects of marihuana that he spoke about in 1925 or so.

(15 September '08 www.stopthedrugwar.org) Will the New Commander-In-Chief Lead Us More Into Incarceration? - U.S. Numero Uno Incacerator - Mostly Due to the War on Drugs.

Pregnancy, Moms, and Marihuana.

Often, women can be treated worse than men for "drug offenses", with addiction, condemnation, and child custody issues paramount with mothers with children. Women are often black-mailed to be quiet about drug issues, and are sometimes controlled and manipulated with drug policy. Human trafficking, organized crime involvement in the sex industry, and drug-trafficking are sometimes associated in the criminal world.

Are recently-pregnant women who tested positive for THC in
the hospital being arrested after giving birth?

More Research is Needed.

Joep Ommen, who works at the Secretariat of of encod.org, just told me recently in answer to my question by phone, that in Europe, they simply don't arrest women who just gave birth, and who have tested positive for something like marihuana. (At the moment I met Joep by phone, I had called another Encod member in Spain to ask a question about that country's marihuana policy. I didn't know Joep was there in the house at that moment. Encod was meeting at the Spaniard's home by coincidence, right at the moment that I called.) So this one thing may be the best way to point out the differences for future parents between the U.S. and Europe at this moment in world history. Sadly to say, in terms of punishment and human rights violations of mothers who may have used marihuana (or other drugs) during their pregnancies, and then spent time in a U.S. jail, this seems a bit extreme to me. The use of brute force to incarcerate a mother who just gave birth, would be considered criminal in Europe, I am sure. Why has our media not pointed this out?

Many have erroneously stated that only "welfare mothers" are being treated oddly due to marihuana usage, perhaps during pregnancy. I think this is not absolutely true. I think it is more regional and variable. Policy may also differ corporation to corporation. And men may also be drug tested... who knows?

Bear in mind that mothers may still use tobacco and alcohol (moderately) in many areas, which totally contradicts the moral argument for these policies for cannabis. Is there any medical evidence that should have prompted anyone to suspect that cannabis usage by mothers was harmful to the unborn, in the first place? Which moron or criminal shouted "FIRE" in the crowded theatre?

(12 May 2014) Prominent researcher on the subject of marihuana usage by pregnant women reveals that myths presuming this to be harmful to the unborn, are generally false.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women, section about the drug war and families. That organization is not generally grouped with drug policy reform. ("Drug War": the national highway robbery system.)

Babies and Marihuana. There isn't much information out there, but what there is, seems to indicate some people have acted extremely conservatively, even draconian-ally, in regard to this subject. (This item found at www.jackherer.com.)

1998 Article from Cannabis Culture by Susan Boyd about Pregnancy, Cannabis, and Children. This article is actually a much better starting point about this subject, than this web posting of mine. She confirms my theory that they didn't really go after marihuana using moms until Reagan became president. It must be true as they would not have reposted it if it had been contradicted. The Nixon era, and previous eras, were generally more "hip" than many would have imagined.

Ronald Reagan really did ramp up the drug war in some quite bizarre ways, blaming the devil incarnate, marihuana, for a multitude of things, real and imagined, that bothered him. ("Drug War": the national highway robbery system.)

NOTE: Loretta Nall of Alabamians for Compassionate Care has told me recently that her group has successfully lobbied the Alabama legislature to delete any such "blood metabolite of marihuana" violation, from Alabama marihuana law. Loretta and her group deserve huge congratulations for helping to keep moms out of jail in Alabama who might test positive for marihuana. Contact Loretta for more accurate information about Alabama.

On a similar note, Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard is unhappy about the new addition to Massachusett's marihuana laws that most marihuana reform groups have not told you about.

NOTE: Dr. Lester Grinspoon does not approve this law as written. There is a FATAL FLAW in it:

The initiative reduces the penalty for possession of up to 1 ounce of marihuana to a fine of $100, but it actually establishes a new offense. The sponsors should withdraw it and replace it with a more thoughtfully worded version.

The new offense is internal possession of marihuana metabolites. Anyone discovered to have any of these metabolites in his (or her) body fluids or hair would be prosecutable.

Medical Marihuana: A Surprising Solution to Severe Morning Sickness, By Erin Hildebrandt, Mothering, Issue 124 May/June 2004. Mom who had 4 out of 5 of her children, using marihuana for all sorts of things, tells it like it is: click here.

(Just what policy is at hospitals may have little or nothing to do with the state legislaure. Who knows? Ask your doctor or other medical caregivers.)

CHEWING ON GOOD FAT FROM THE BBC:Obese patients with high BMI, and who are DIAGNOSED, with cardiovascular disease, have a LOWER death rate than thin or normal patients diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. WHY?

ANSWER: MY OPINION: such obese people DO exercise more - BY CARRYING ALL THAT EXTRA WEIGHT AROUND EVERYDAY! Just getting out of a chair for them, is EXERCISE! LARGE people who just move around a little, are actually exercising a LOT.

Plus, if this "fat" is "good fat", what's the problem? Good fat means, "no-trans-fats."

MY OPINION: they don't actually have cardiovascular disease - they're just FAT, and appear to have cardiovascular disease due to having a high BMI. The doctors ASSUME they have heart disease due to being FAT.

(26 July '08 www.NORML.org)

COURT'S ENSLAVED-GIRL SHOT DEAD,due to pleading guilty, a form of PURE SELF-HATRED

or self-criminalization. Don't do that to yourself.. STAY ALIVE!!!

SSDP Member Slain.Should your daughter(s) plead guilty, or remain free?
Don't Plead Guilty - Don't lose control of your life to the state.ENSLAVED GIRL Rachel H. was shot dead due to the institutionalized self-hatred
(being compelled to "plead guilty") that is usually part of marihuana prohibition."Decriminalization" also compels everyone to "plead guilty" and pay small fines - MISTAKE!DON'T PLEAD GUILTY FOR MARIHUANA NO MATTER WHAT! Pleading guilty for "illicit drugs" will eventually enslave you.

Why pleading guilty is ALWAYS a form of self-hatred in a fundamental historical way, to some extent. Click here.

Don't hate yourself, don't plead guilty, don't go to "drug court". Don't enslave yourself. Plead "Not Guilty". (I realize that many will have to plead guilty in order to get away from the jurisdiction where they are being charged, in order to return to normal life at home.

Todd McCormick, former editorHigh Life magazine, the Netherlands, English language edition.(Wish I had a copy. It was often on display "for sale"
in many Amsterdam and Dutch coffee shops back in 1996.)Major Medical Marihuana Activist until Prison late 1999.
To many, Todd McCormick was Proposition 215

He wrote about his own unusual life, and other topics. He had had a form of cancer, which may or not not be dormant (I don't know). He edited a magazine or two published in Amsterdam and England. He promoted a certain herbal remedy. He wound up in prison for many years. (NOTE: the following article was written probably in Fall 1995, probably just before Todd relocated to Amsterdam. He relocated to California in the U.S., I believe, in early 1997, after prop. 215 passed.) Did Todd McCormick really deserve to spend 5 years or so behind bars? Was there "justice" or benefit from that? Are there hundreds of thousands or millions like him behind bars now? What exactly was his crime compared to all those who have remained generally, out of jail during the same period that Todd was incarcerated? In a more sane world, what advice should Todd have been given, and might have followed to have avoided going to jail? I think we all deserve to know the answers to those questions. I personally do not think that Todd McCormick is a criminal, or was a criminal before, during, or after the period that he was incarcerated. A guy speaking about Todd McCormick and what happened to him from about late 1997 until 2004.

The Robotic Out-of-Control Mechanical Calculator CAN BE SHUT OFF!
This mechanical calculator could do division and multiplication,
with digital mechanical output (answer). If doing long division, an
answer with a remainder would cause it to run indefinitely - the user
had to manually shut it down in that situation. The top "answer
carriage" went back and forth like a typewriter carriage, but did
so in a seemingly random way when stuck in "long division".

It wasn't random, but rather behaved according to the repeating decimal value.
The shut-off repeating division lever, I think, is the red lever in the upper
left-hand corner.

(29 July '08) Back when marihuana was still legal, around 1925 or 1927, we could say that many, if not most, of the elements of our modern civilization had already been created such as real-time instant (more or less) telegraphic stock market data, indoor plumbing for baths and toilet, electric lights, electric fans, central heat, steam powered cars (wood, coal, etc.), jazz, the AC electricity system, the airplane, ship to shore radio, undersea telegraph and telephone cables, the dirigible, the gyrocopter, the radio, the telegraph, the talking movie, the phonograph, the telephone, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the washing machine, modern psychology, modern universities, electric cars, solar thermal energy, women's right to vote and run for office, social security insurance in most countries, the Haarlemmermeer polder (Holland), the Brooklyn bridge, modern railroads, banning alcohol production and sales for human consumption, (just kidding), and many other progressive things.

The idea that civilization will decay if marihuana were legalized is contradicted by all the incredible progress that had already taken place before the cancer called marihuana-prohibition took hold. It appears that marihuana prohibition was a mistake.

The truth of the matter is that Silicon Valley, and the economy of the western U.S., is populated with many working marihuana users. What would you expect with the Grateful Dead being the "patron saints" of the area? The tech sector of the stock market is, in a sense, often dependent on the brains of marihuana users.

(Note: a handful of American cities and/or states had prohibited marihuana before 1937 when the federal government sneakily made it illegal with little or no publicity ahead of this prohibitionist act. In 1925, the League of Nations also sneakily added it to the list of prohibited items.

Note: members of the Grateful Dead worked directly with digital electronic inventors as early as about 1969-1970 in creating new types of "digital" (a new word) electronic based guitars, basses, and other musical instruments about 8 or 9 years before the home-computer revolution began. They also had the world's best analog stage sound system for years, mostly built by their own techies.

Phil Lesh was using a totally custom built line of synthesized bass guitars with pressure-sensitive-switch-activated digital effects from the frets. This was around 72-73 when it was being reported - maybe even before that or slightly later. It was before 1975 at the latest. The pressure-sensitive-fret switches were 3 stage pressure activated switches.

However, the person once known as Walter Carlos (who later, around 1978 or so, legally changed his name, and surgically his body, into "Wendy Carlos") was actually the really well known "leader" of the digital music revolution, more than The Dead in most people's minds, anyway, around 1969-1973).

This posting is in reference to the unfortunate "brownie overdose" event which took place on or around Dec. 10th, 2012, at the Univ. of Colorado after classmates and at least one professor ate brownies secretly "spiked" with cannabis at a "bring-food-day" celebratory event, resulting later that day in confusion, hysteria, feelings of sickness, near-inability to control sleepiness, fear of death, a number of hospital admissions, and felony and other indictments for the alleged instigators. (However, I haven't seen any articles which stated that anyone actually became unconscious and unable to be woken up - they just felt very sleepy after eating food! That happens to me at every meal!)

Unfortunately, the instigators apparently did not warn anyone of the presence of cannabis in the brownies, which might have prevented the entire hysterical and expensive episode from occurring in the first place, assuming all the victims were "experienced" enough.

The term, "cannabis overdose", in relation to other well known and extremely dangerous drug scenarios, is actually inaccurate. There is no known dosage of cannabis or THC which can produce death or non-wakable comatose mental conditions for users.

However, sleepiness or a feeling of slight tiredenss is common; but long-term wakable loss of consciousness ("sleep") is no more prevalent with cannabis than it is with coffee, especially for experienced users of cannabis.

And cannabis cannot produce the non-wakable comatose state which can mutate into death, such as that comatose state produced by too much alcohol or hard-drugs, such as Seconal.

But unfortunately, most of the victims in Colorado did not know what was happening.

The "slight feeling of tiredness or sleepiness" for many after using large amounts of cannabis, and which can be easily overridden, is what helps some users to fall into a wakable sleep without using traditional and usually quite dangerous narcotics or sleeping pills. (Cannabis is not a narcotic, hard-drug, sleeping pill, or "knock-out" drug like Seconal, in the traditional sense!)

Smaller doses of Seconal and other hard-drugs, merely produces sleep, not death.

The words "narcotic", or "hard-drug", should not be used for cannabis.

Seconal:

traditional "sleeping pill" as used by most people in the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, and so forth, Eventually, other safer things were invented that you can't die from so easily.

In '60's counter-culture jargon, Seconal tablets were traditionally called, "reds", because the pills were colored red. As in, "Hey man, got any reds?" There were also "blues", and other colors that meant certain specific drugs. This is the only one I ever heard about, actually. I don't know what "blues" refer to in phamaceutical jargon.

Barbituate.

Considered a "downer" or "hard-drug", like opiates, but is not an opiate.

Taking more than the recommended dosage can easily be fatal.

Should never be used along with alcohol in even small doses, or death can result.

If overdosed on, can produce "non-wakable" comatose conditions that may not create death, but from which a person cannot wake from until the drug wears off a little more. This is what "hard-drug" used to mean, traditionally in English.

Medically, sometimes prescribed along with Prelude, an amphetimine-like drug, for those with thyroid problems of a certain type.

Learned about Seconal from the book sent by NORML, when I once joined that organization: click here. Licit and Illicit Drugs; The Consumers Union Report on Narcotics, Stimulants, Depressants, Inhalants, Hallucinogens, and Marihuana - Including Caffei [Paperback].

(12 June '08) HOW TO PLEAD "NOT GUILTY" IN COURT. (For simple possession of marihuana.... or of being a marihuana trader.)

In old Europe and in Colonial America originally, if you were not from the upper-class, you were always presumed guilty as charged unless proven otherwise. That was one reason why America came into existence, to establish basic rights for all free citizens, and to establish a classy caste-free society. (At first only some more wealthy white men, depending on which state, were considered free citizens; later it increasingly expanded to include all other races and both sexes.)

Making Pleas to the Police? A suspect (person arrested or charged with a crime) does not make such pleas to the police. Pleading "guilty" or pleading "not guilty" always takes place between the suspect and a judge. That's how it has always been. If a suspect has confessed to the police, it doesn't matter; they can still plead "not guilty", as pleading "not guilty" is part of every American's rights, regardless. Pleading "not guilty" is actually a political right held by everyone charged under U.S. law, regardless. A suspect doesn't need anyone's permission to plead "not guilty".

"Decrim." versus Legalization:

Question: should those charged under "decrim." also plead not guilty, even if the fine is only $100 or so?

Answer: under "decrim.", ironically, I would be much more likely to plead "not guilty". For one thing, do you really think they're going to waste court time carrying through with it, and having a jury trial for just a $100 fine? However, in jurisdictions where cash flow from drug money seizures and drug offender fines are a large part of the cash flow for the local government, it is more likely they would have a trial than in the "decrim." areas. Keep all of your American freedoms - plead Not-Guilty no matter what.

Many clients of so-called "better lawyers"; i.e., those who don't buy large flamboyant advertisements, are just as likely to be led by these more conservative lawyers into the "dump of criminality", as the flamboyant ones. It's a huge historical trend with all lawyers who are generally adverse to defending clients in court.

When you feel compelled to plead guilty, you are placing yourself lower than the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, according to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of those held at Guantanamo Bay.

FACT: In fact, "feeling compelled to plead guilty" does not take place in the United States. If you feel compelled to plead guilty, you have just been exported outside of the United States. You are also allowing your lawyer to get paid for doing nothing on your behalf. You are paying for a defense, yet you are getting less than nothing in return. You are getting screwed!

Simply be stubborn - return to the United States, and keep all of your American freedoms - plead "not guilty" no matter what.

In old Europe, if you were not from the upper-class, you were always presumed guilty as charged unless proven otherwise. That was why America came into existence, to establish basic rights for all free citizens, and to establish a classy caste-free society. (At first only some more wealthy white men, depending on which state, were considered free citizens; later it increasingly expanded to include all other races and both sexes.)

First of all, since you are in an American courtroom, you are alreadypresumed innocent until proven guilty. Therefore, your "not-guilty" plea is already in perfect harmony with the presumptions of the court where you are being tried. The prosecution must now prove to the court that you are guilty of the charges. They have to build a case against you and prove you had criminal intent. There is no requirement on your part to confess, or declare your innocence regarding the charges. You should be able to remain silent with your presumed state of "not guilty". You and your attorney do not have to make specific defenses for you, until challenged by the prosecution to the contrary. (Apparently, some states require you to verbally make a "not guilty" plea, others allow the presumption of innocence to be the default.)

Simply go to the courthouse on the appropriate date (court date) with or without a lawyer. When your name is called, the judge will ask you what you are going to do at some point. In some places, you may be assigned a court appointed lawyer. At any rate, don't let organized crime elements railroad you into the dump of convictees (guilty pleas). They may actually try to threaten or intimidate you, through fear, into pleading guilty and being tossed into the dump of criminality. (Even if you're not in jail, you are in the dump of criminality if you plead guilty, or are convicted.) Where these anti-American elements come from, who knows? Perhaps they are there for mere comic relief? I have no idea, but they have nothing to do with the American legal system.

At some point, with or without a lawyer, you can state to the judge, "Not Guilty". At that point, the legal process will unfold. Be very very very very very very careful to not change your plea, no matter what. Don't let your lawyer lead you into the dump. Don't let anyone else lead you into the dump. (Apparently, some states require you to verbally make a "not guilty" plea, others allow the presumption of innocence to be the default.)

Watch what happens ultimately. In many jurisdictions, it will take an enormously long time to find out what they are going to do with you. There may be a trial as that is automatically the default process if the prosecution has a case against you. You will become very happy in most cases as you are freed from the garbage truck heading to the dump of life. If the prosecution is unable to substantiate the charges against you, you will be found to be in your original presumed status: "NOT GUILTY", or all charges will be dropped without any trial. If this happens, you are helping to reduce the crime rate by this presumption of innocence, unsuccessfully challenged, that you are not a criminal.

If found guilty, you can always keep appealing until the process is terminated by intermediate courts, or ends at the U.S. Supreme Court. This appeals process could take years and years, etc., and lots and lots of money for defense lawyere, though some have made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and won with much less expense - without a lawyer, though this is extremely rare.

Down through history, many U.S. and state laws have been "thrown out" by this appeals process. Any law in the U.S. can be thrown out using this legal process of appeals if the law is repugnant to, or in conflict with, the constitution. Example: the assault rifle ban law passed during Clinton's terms was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Note - most of the really good lawyers in the U.S. who defend those charged as drug offenders, spend most of their resources and talent defending trafficking networks; i.e, drug traffickers. They really don't give a damn about your rights as a "simple possession" alleged offender since you aren't paying them tens or hundreds or millions of dollars. Therefore, if you plead "not-guilty" and you're not one of the Columbian or Mexican drug cartel leaders, many U.S. lawyers are not interested in taking you on as a client in the first place unless you're very very rich.

This country began as a successful "not-your-slave" plea , or a "not-guilty" plea, to the old-royalty of Europe, who were once the owners and controllers of their colonial subjects (the Americans, etc.) in the New World. There were once situations where American citizens ("commoners" or "slaves" to the "lords") were enslaved by European powers controlled by pseudo-royalty, even after we became a new country. The enslavement of American civilian sailors, most presumably white, by the British Royal Navy is one of the things which started the War of 1812.

The tendency to plead "not guilty", though redundant, is in harmony with the presumptions of the court, and is so fundamentally American in nature. Don't forget that. Pleading guilty on the other hand, is pleading to the judge to have your American citizenship rights severely curtailed.